Only the drawers were left, two on either side. She began pulling them open. Jamie didn’t seem to have much use for drawers. The upper ones had a selection of pens and pencils. Tucked away at the back of one was a spare river association baseball cap. She pulled it out. It made her think of Glen. She needed to talk to him. The truth was, she’d missed him. The third drawer was stuck…no, locked. Definitely locked. Perhaps there was money in there, or some other valuable item? The last drawer opened freely, revealing a half-empty bottle of single malt rocking to and fro.
Maybe it was time to call it a day. She’d finish the job in the morning. As she leant forward to replace the baseball cap in the drawer, she felt something hard round the seam. The tiny pocket had been custom-made with a Velcro seal. Gently, she pulled. And out it fell. The key to the third drawer. Her heart rate picked up as she turned the stiff lock.
She slid out the thick hardbacked A 5 notebook, involuntarily stroking a palm across the front cover. The handwritten label was still pristine white: Alternative⁄Backup Logbook. Year 2006.
The book fell open at a well-creased page.
12⁄8⁄06
ALISTAIR SUTHERLAND: he is alone. He shares many traits with his sister or, at least, those that have led himto keep a busy but lonely life. I have seen what he does and who he does it with. He is a sad man. A weak man. VERDICT: NOT PROVEN (YET)
FRASER COULTER: he is largely an unknown quantity to me, although I know he can be rough and boorish. He is often away from his rather grand house up there on the hillside. When he is in residence, he drinks to excess on his own. I am told (by Morag) that Coulter has some creative talents. Hard to believe. I suspect Fraser Coulter is also essentially alone. VERDICT: NOT PROVEN (YET)
BONNIE CAMPBELL: seems unknowable. I have not felt it proper to watchher. It would be intrusion rather than surveillance. I think she is a genuine if rather strange person. I hope she will be able to help Morag when she needs it, as she undoubtedly will soon, I fear. VERDICT: NOT GUILTY
CRAIG IRVINE: I care little about this specimen. I know what Mr (he’s not fit to own the title ‘Dr’!) Irvine is doing and he is an abomination. I care not if he is alone. I do care, however, that he will leave Morag a lonely and sad person. Swine! Swine! Swine! VERDICT: GUILTY
IONA SUTHERLAND>: she is alone. I know. I’ve seen how she lives. A busy but empty life. A people-using, exploitative, self-serving life. She, like me, abhors her own company. I’m sure of it. I’ve seen her. Watched her. She is a restless and devious being. But she is alone, alone to hercore. VERDICT: GUILTY
Alone. Alone. They are all alone, I am all alone. In that, and only that, we are together.
I will keep my eye on them all. Some to protect. Others to CONVICT.
Sentences hould be SEVERE.
She shoved the notebook away from her, as if its very proximity would contaminate her. But as she did so, a page fell out. A sketch. In pencil. No colour. Thankfully. The representation was unmistakable. The two bodies intertwined. In sex. In death. Around them, details of trees and foliage, those in the foreground picked out with extreme, detailed accuracy.
And then there was the third figure. Pointed hiking stick raised. Ready to deliver another, unnecessary blow. A tall figure. In uniform. Complete with baseball cap, and emblazoned on it the familiar logo: WLRA.
A self-portrait.
Thirty-Five
A shaft of pain pierced behind her right eye. Kirstin pushed her seat back, out of the glare of the lamp and away from what lay on the desk.
How long she had been here, she had no idea. A deep chill had taken hold of her and what had started as a dull pain had turned into a full-blown headache. She moved stiffly and painfully to shut the windows despite the balmy night. She hugged herself, trying to get warm, and began wandering aimlessly through the house, eventually stopping to pour herself a drink. The smell of alcohol immediately turned her stomach, and she threw the nauseating liquid down the kitchen sink before switching on the kettle. Tea. Strong, sweet tea. She moved robotically around the kitchen, revisiting the sketch in her mind as she drank.
She’d lost track of time. Then, throwing what she could scrabble together of her belongings into two plastic carrier bags—to hell with the rest of her things—she checked for the keys to her flat. Safe in a side pocket. All she wanted was to get away from this place. Except, she had nowhere to go now that her flat had been rented out.
She slumped down on to the bottom of the stairs. I need time, a place to think! Moments later, she jumped up, grabbed her bags and headed out to the car. She breathed deeply…and then again…trying, willing herself to find some composure. The night air was warm with a hint of welcome humidity. She tumbled her bags into the back seat and moved behind the wheel. As she lifted her hand towards the ignition key, she noticed the shaking, and she struggled to insert the key. Now what? Where in God’s name was she going to go? Ross was out of the question. God, Ross! How am I going to tellyou? How?
She fumbled with her phone and, falteringly, her trembling fingers found Glen’s number. Surely she could go round to his place tonight? She was a fraction away from pressing the call button, when she let the phone drop into her lap. No, not Glen. He wasn’t the right person to discuss this with first. He must have hidden the other logs from the police for good reason. To protect the association, and to protect Jamie. Now what was she going to tell him? That Jamie had duped him, had duped them all.
She leant forward, head pressed against the steering wheel, and closed her eyes as if that very action could negate the last hour. Numbness. A cold, anaesthetizing numbness. To her core. No tears. No cries of unimaginable pain, shock, horror. Just shaking. Trembling. And a feeling of nothingness. She was aware of her own laboured breathing, the one sign that her body was responding to trauma.
The rat-a-tat on the driver’s window was thunderous.
‘Kirstin? Ktrstin! What are you doing?’
Morag’s scowling face was inches away from her own, separated only by the glass. Kirstin stared back, making no immediate attempt to open either window or door. Morag took the initiative and wrenched at the door handle.
Kirstin sipped greedily at the warm tea. Sitting in front of her, Morag was turning the notebook over and over in her hands. Eventually she dropped it on to the coffee table and reached for her drink. She ignored her own tea and grasped the brandy, throwing a mouthful down and grimacing. ‘I cannot understand this, Kirstin. I can’t believe…’
Kirstin nodded as Morag trailed off into incredulous silence. ‘I know, I know. But look at the sketch. Why? Why would he do that if…? I mean, it’s a sick thing to draw under any circumstances. If he drew that and he…well, and he wasn’t involved, that would be unforgivable in itself. But…the whole tone of the log. There’s no other explanation. Jesus. I need to speak to Ross. And the police.’
Matching Morag, she swapped the tea mug for her brandy glass. ‘You’ve been vilified all this time. It’s been so wrong. So wrong!’
‘Indeed.’ Morag was nodding her head, surprisingly unflustered. ‘It also offers a clearer idea of why Jamie died. It must be looked at as suicide, surely?’ She sipped slowly at her drink. ‘I find it baffling. Jamie wanted to help me. So he said. Why? Why do that?’
Kirstin offered a sad smile. ‘Because he didn’t want you, of all people, to get into trouble for what he’d done. Remember, he must have believed, given what was probably going through his mind at the time, that he was ridding you of a menace. Craig.’ She paused, feeling surprisingly refreshed, lucid and composed. She couldn’t afford to lose control just yet. For Morag’s sake, even though she seemed to be holding up well. Of all the people to turn up at that moment, she’d been the one to come over, frustrated at her phone messages being ignored. And what had she found? A practically catatonic Kirstin, unable to function. Morag had taken the wheel and driven them back to her house, provided tea, booze, and eventually extracted the truth from her, remaining remarkably calm throughout.
She caught Morag’s frown—of disagreement? Disapproval? And quickly she held up a hand.
‘I’m not, and please be clear on this, Morag, I am not excusing the inexcusable. I’m just casting around for some sort of explanation. I can’t begin to know what this news must feel like, what you’ve suffered. Losing Craig, losing your freedom, the persecution, everything.’ She paused for a second time. ‘I think that whatever Jamie did was done on the spur of the moment. He lashed out. I don’t know why. Maybe there was a row. Perhaps he was…well, appalled at finding them there, in that position, and it all escalated. I don’t know and…frankly, I can’t believe I’m sitting here trying to justify bloody murder.’
The tears came at last. She felt Morag stir but make no attempt to physically comfort her. Instead, Morag was staring past her, the face stony, unreadable. Had she offended Morag by trying to defend him? Why wasn’t she jumping up in fury and outrage at the misery Jamie had caused her?
Kirstin heard her give out a short, almost nervous cough.
‘At least we have some answers now.’
Thirty-Six
‘Here. I should have…I meant to destroy them.’
Kirstin accepted the bundle of photographs from Ross’s cold, trembling hand and held his fingers, just for a moment. He nodded his gratitude, eyes still reddened. She’d seen him cry before, but it was still heartbreaking to witness. She’d called him just as dawn broke and, though she’d been cautious in her wording, he’d picked up on her tone immediately and was instantly awake. He knew something was very wrong. By the time she’d arrived, he was showered, shaved and on to his second coffee. And waiting. Anxious. She handed over the notebook and the sketch. Minutes later, his life had been changed forever.
Now Kirstin shuffled through the sheaf of photographs Ross had handed her. Various security cameras had tracked Jamie’s stealthy progress through lona Sutherland’s extensive garden, culminating in a shot of him at the side of her house, peering through an open window. Kirstin shook her head in disbelief.
Ross sat down opposite her. ‘She gave me an ultimatum. Confront him with these. Stop him, or she’d make ‘big trouble’, as she put it.’
‘But…after she died? Didn’t these come out?’ Ross shook his head. ‘No. Last year, when these were taken, she was getting a new system put in. They’re the only copies. I promised to have him reined in. And if it didn’t work, she could have the photos back and do what she had to. I…I didn’t have the guts to show them to Dad then.
Only after, when…when everything happened at the Cauldron.’
His eye was drawn again to the bundle of photographs. ‘I should have taken these more seriously. I mean, lona Sutherland had had to come to me before. Over some letters that Dad had fired off to her and her group. I felt defensive towards Dad then. I mean, most of them were a bunch of shits really. Overgrown spoilt brats. Anyway, Glen called me too and, for God’s sake, we both should’ve sat up and paid more attention. And yes, I know. You’ve told me often 1 enough. I’m rotten at paying attention to the important things. But anyway, both Glen and I had to cover Dad’s back with the police. In truth, they weren’t interested in the river feud. And from what I could gather from the police, I the likes of Alistair Sutherland and the rest of them weren’t interested in that either. They’d all just had the biggest, most traumatic shock of their lives. A petty feud with a seventy-year-old bore wasn’t uppermost in their minds.’
She looked at him. ‘But it must have been in your mind? Just a bit?’
He shrugged and rubbed at his reddened eyes. ‘No matter what I felt about him as a father, I could never have believed him capable of such violence. Of course I trusted him. I wanted to. I had to. He assured me he knew nothing that would help the police and so, a bit like Glen with the logs, I colluded with Dad. And that was that, I didn’t think any more about it. I got kind of distracted by all his other behaviour. His interfering with Morag’s case. And then…he died. Jesus, God! Why the hell didn’t he leave a note or something?’
She saw the tears well up again, and gently touched his arm. Laying down the photos and picking up the logbook, she nodded. ‘He did. He left this. But, you know, I don’t think he planned it, his suicide. Not for that night in February specifically. If he had, I think he would have left some other explanation.’ She paused, thinking about how best to go on. ‘Tell me, I don’t suppose you’ve seen the letter Jamie left for Glen?’
Ross shook his head.
‘Right. Well, I’m sure Glen will let you have a look. It’s about Mill House, the bequest. But, the thing is, I think the letter reads like a suicide note.’
Ross looked as if she’d struck him. But she knew she had no choice. Ross had to know everything that she knew.
She tried a reassuring smile. ‘So you see, your instincts were right when you described Jamie’s bequest as a suicide note. I mean, how could anyone go on living after doing what he’d done? I want to believe that Jamie didn’t mean to do what he did. But he did it, and then he panicked. And then things got worse with Morag’s arrest, and then…he was his own judge and jury, finally delivering the only verdict and punishment possible on himself. But the truth is, we don’t know what happened. Though maybe, in some mad way, he was hoping to make amends with this bequest.’
Ross shrugged again, a single tear rolling down towards his quivering lip. Gently, she wiped the tear away with her finger. He’d covered his face with both hands, and she moved closer as he rocked to and fro, the sobs silent but powerful as they wracked his body.
‘Look, Ross, come on. Come on now. We’ve got to decide what to do. See the police. All that. There are people grieving for Craig Irvine and lona Sutherland. Their loved ones. We owe it to them to get things sorted out. It’ll be horrible. As soon as you can, I think you should go away. I’ve told Morag to. She thinks that, luckily, Alistair Sutherland has already gone away. Bonnie said as much before she died. Just as well. I don’t know about Eraser Coulter, but Alistair Sutherland will come back as soon as he hears. He’s completely unbalanced. You’ll need to protect yourself. I mean it.’
She caught the flicker of concern as it crossed his face. Ross was no physical fighter. ‘Right. Okay. If you think that’s best. But…when d’you want to talk to the police, then? I suppose we need to do it straight away. Should someone come over here, or to Mill House? Or shall we go in and see them, or what?’
Normally so cool in a crisis, he was now utterly impotent, disempowered. She gave his arm another reassuring squeeze.
‘It doesn’t really matter about that. Whatever we decide, we can do it together. But, first, there are two people I must go and see.’
‘Glen?’
She nodded. ‘Yes. And Donald. It’s only fair. What we know will wait until after I’ve seen them. Both deserve some warning. I fear Glen’ll be heading for some trouble over the logs. And the publicity will be disastrous. And Donald, Christ! It doesn’t bear thinking about.’
Ross sat up. ‘But…I’m not sure about that. I mean…shouldn’t we go to the police noy?’
She stood up. ‘No, I think we owe it to Glen and Donald. They both put themselves out for your father. Let me deal with them. After that, we’ll do what needs to be done. And we’ll do it together. You’ll get through it, Ross. We both will.’
Thirty-Seven
As she approached Donald Ferguson’s house, Kirstin felt the humid air claw at her skin, heightening the anxiety that had been growing as she envisaged the encounter ahead. Unlike Ross,
Donald failed to pick up on her tone of voice over the phone. Just as well. In fact, the old man seemed excessively jolly, insisting that she come for afternoon tea.
For twenty minutes she half listened to his news while trying to swallow cake that tasted like sawdust. Finally, she could take no more.
‘Please,please, Donald. I have to talk to you.’
The notebook lay open at the sketch, the bundle of lona’s security photographs beside it, both nestling incongruously among the detritus of afternoon tea. Donald was very pale now. And still. His voice had been kept to a low whisper.
‘But he told me he had been at home all day. With his hip. I don’t, I just don’t understand it. How…tell me, how can you know someone for so long, know him so well, like a brother. And then…this? How can that happen? He was a good man. I thought Jamie was a good man.’ He wouldn’t look at her. Just kept his glazed eyes fixed on the sketch.
‘Donald? Donald?
At last he jerked his head up to make eye contact. He seemed to be having trouble focusing on her, blinking repeatedly as she talked.
‘Donald, you’re right. Jamie was a good man. Once. I’m sure of that.’ God, how long can you keep going on saying that?
‘But something happened to him. I don’t begin to understand what. You’d need to be a psychiatrist to analyse that. And Jamie’s gone. Any attempt at understanding him is redundant.’
‘That’s not what those poor people’s families might think. They’ll demand to know why their loved ones had to die.’ Donald’s simple observation held an accusatory tone.
Rightly so, Kirstin thought. ‘That’s true, very true. And I didn’t mean to seem so callous about the victims. They are the most important thing in all this. Maybe I, maybe Morag and I, should have gone straight to the police last night. But first I wanted to tell Ross, tell you, and Glen.’
2007 - The Dead Pool Page 20