‘Sergeant Dougal Strang,’ said Jasmine.
‘That was him, yes. I told him I knew where he could find Tessa Garrion, but that I would only tell him in person, alone, and that I needed absolute, guaranteed confidentiality. He drove straight to Inverness to meet me. We spoke at the hotel. I ditched the wig and showed him my own passport to prove I was Tessa Garrion, safe and sound, and I told him I was pregnant by Hamish.’
‘You were pregnant? How could you know so soon?’
‘I wasn’t pregnant. I told Sergeant Strang I was so that he’d agree not to tell anybody he’d seen me. I said Hamish didn’t know about the baby. I wanted to go it alone, and if Hamish found out he’d try to do the right thing by me, and I didn’t want him suffering all the shame and scandal that would come with it.
‘The sergeant was as good as his word. As far as the police were aware, both Tessa Garrion and Saffron Simpson were alive and well. I flew to London that day, then on to Brussels.’
‘Why Brussels?’
‘It was the first flight with stand-by seats available when I reached Heathrow. I flew out on my own passport as I looked nothing like the photo in Saffron’s, but after I got there I became Veronica Jane Simpson for keeps.’
‘Until you became Veejay Khan,’ Jasmine said.
‘That was my husband’s name for me. I met him in Brussels a few months after I arrived. I got an office job. I spoke French and had decent secretarial skills from part-time work in my drama-student days. Jaffir was a lawyer. He was from Edinburgh originally, though his family hailed from Sri Lanka. He was based in Brussels but he worked for a British firm. We got married in 1982.’
‘Making you officially V. J. Khan, and a British citizen. Where is your husband now? Are you still married?’
Tessa nodded.
‘He’s in Amsterdam. Phoned me about half an hour before you arrived. It’s the first time he’s been away overnight since what happened to Hamish, so he was checking I was holding up all right.’
‘How did you end up here?’
‘We lived in Brussels until 2000, when our son, Michael, went off to university. He did law, like his father, and he chose Glasgow. We’d talked about coming back to Scotland and decided it was the right time to do it. Jaffir travelled a lot on his job and could increasingly do the rest of it from home, so we relocated. We had actually rented this place for a holiday a few years before, and it came on the market at just the right time.’
‘When did you get back in touch with Hamish?’
‘I ran into him in Brussels, in about 1995, at the theatre, unsurprisingly. I was there to see a production of Woe From Wit and he was there to check out the venue itself ahead of exporting one of his musicals. He was already doing very well and I was pleased for him. Not so well on the marriage front, but that was always Hamish’s problem. I told him my married name and how I’d already ceased being Tessa Garrion as part of my disappearing act. We kept in touch.’
‘Did you act again?’ Jasmine asked.
‘Not until I got involved with the Loch Shiel Players. There were possibilities in Brussels, but … I saw it as kind of a penance for what I’d done. Then once I had become a mother, it all got too complicated, and you’d be amazed how fast the years passed after that. I missed it terribly, but I knew it was a small price to pay for the life I had, compared to the one I’d have ended up with. I had Jaffir and I had Michael, and I had my freedom.
‘But when we moved here I saw this amateur dramatics group performing down in Fort William and I decided to dip my toe again. Or more like the recovering alcoholic’s first sip: he can’t have just one sip, and I couldn’t just dip my toe. I got very heavily involved, and then when funding became really tight I asked Hamish to sponsor us, which he kindly and generously did. He was the most loyal of friends, in every way.’
A tear ran down her face as she stared into the distance again, this wound still very raw. Jasmine felt Tessa’s pain all the more keenly due to her growing awareness that it was her investigation that had set the dominoes falling.
‘Did Hamish call you recently?’ Jasmine asked. She had to lay her cards on the table here.
‘Yes,’ Tessa replied, her tone indicating that she was only now reminded of this. ‘He called to warn me that a private investigator had been asking about Tessa Garrion. It was only a few days before he was killed.’
‘We don’t believe these two events were coincidental. Hamish didn’t just call you, he phoned everybody who was in the Glass Shoe Company to warn them about me.’
‘He didn’t want them to talk. He was still trying to protect me.’
‘They all had their own reasons not to talk. One more than the rest. Whoever killed Saffron knew you were still alive, knew that you had taken her identity, but also knew you’d never say anything because you would incriminate yourself. But when I started digging into what happened at Kildrachan the stakes changed.’
‘But how would the killer know I’d taken Saffron’s identity? Are you saying it was someone from the company? I had always thought it was some local weirdo. Who else would be going around in a robe like that in the dark?’
Jasmine told her all that they’d learned about that night, the sum of all her recent efforts still lacking its final answer.
‘Jesus,’ Tessa reeled. ‘Talk about sex, lies and videotape.’
‘So despite the snuff movie being fake,’ Jasmine said, ‘Darius or Murray could still have been the killer. Maybe something happened as one of them walked her back to her house.’
‘Murray told us he was with Julian in the kitchen, drinking whisky,’ Fallan said. ‘We now know for sure that part was a lie. So maybe there’s another reason why he drove down to the Lake District in a desperate attempt to destroy the tape.’
Tessa shook her head.
‘It couldn’t have been Murray. The person I saw wasn’t tall enough. Murray could probably have carried Saffron over his shoulder. He wouldn’t have needed to drag her along the ground.’
‘Then it had to have been Darius after all.’
‘Not necessarily,’ Tessa argued.
‘But there’s no one else it could have been,’ Jasmine replied, exasperated. ‘I’ve seen the tape myself, and it was Murray and Darius in those robes.’
‘On the tape, yes,’ agreed Tessa. ‘But who was holding the camera?’
Stars, Hide Your Fires
He had hidden himself away behind the camera, cowering in the sanctuary of that invisible fourth wall, too scared to step beyond it and into the frame. He was supposed to be part of the ritual, he and Murray flanking Darius, an unholy trinity in the robes that had been intended for the weird sisters of act one, scene one.
He’d only have to stand there, Darius explained, for visual symmetry. No speaking part, no action. Easy enough, he’d thought; easier still after a few drams. But the second she took her clothes off and stood there naked before them, he felt this near-paralysing sense of intimidation and selfconsciousness.
He couldn’t be up close. He couldn’t do this.
‘It’s okay,’ Darius had assured him, trying to stem his apologies. ‘You can get us some hand-held shots, add to the impression of “found footage”.’
So he had stood and watched, only stood and watched.
The violence barely registered; it meant no more to him than any other stage trick. When you were party to the technicalities, that was all you saw: equipment doing its job. You sometimes had to blind yourself to the spectacle, because your attention was already supposed to be on your next task: your blocking, your dialogue, a scenery change.
Her nakedness ceased to register too, her body becoming just another part of the performance, nudity itself a costume.
But then, when it was over, she began to dance. She was no longer the character of the sacrificial victim, no longer an element of Darius’s tableau. She was Saffron again, but Saffron to the power of ten. Shameless, wanton, venal, lustful. Dancing naked, flaunting her nudity, pulling them i
nto kisses, pulling both of them into a writhing embrace.
He hated her.
He wanted her.
He hated her because he wanted her, and he wanted her because he hated her.
He hated how she carried herself, draped over the men with easy familiarity. He hated how she went barefoot, bare-legged, in loose skirts that always seemed to be riding up, flashing her underwear. He hated how she seldom wore a bra, breasts always partly visible in those strappy sundresses that she favoured.
She was a disgrace. She was just like the tauntresses who had led his father to stray, preying on a good man’s weakness, their shameless sins also a merciless predation upon his innocent mother.
Women like her had ruined his parents’ marriage. Women of low morals, without respect for themselves, without respect for the codes, the decency of those around them. They resented those codes, that decency, resented the better lives those people were trying to live. Their conduct was an iconoclasm.
And now this, this was everything he suspected about her, writ larger than he could have imagined. Yet he could not walk away, could not look away, could not stop filming as she writhed and cavorted.
Darius and Murray became as faceless as if they had kept up their hoods: he only saw her.
Every so often she would look towards the camera, look towards him. She was humiliating him in his exclusion, taunting him by not inviting him to join too, yet taunting him also because she knew he was too afraid to come forward should he be beckoned.
The more he watched, the more he wanted her. The more he wanted her, the more he hated her. The more he hated her, the more he wanted to watch her degrade herself in animalistic frenzy.
He strode out into the night, just a minute or two behind her. Murray and Darius had gone off to the kitchen in search of whisky and some food. He moved at a brisk jog; it would be unseemly, even alarming, should she turn and see him sprint.
He knew the route she’d take, and caught up quickly. She was still pretty drunk, walking in no great hurry.
‘Hey, what’s up?’ she asked, turning to take in his approach.
‘Let me walk you home. It’s late and dark.’
He just wanted to walk her home. Be solicitous. See what happened. ‘You’re a dear, Julian, but I’m all right. Just need my bed.’
He wanted her. She’d want him too. She couldn’t get enough. He just had to show willing, show he wasn’t scared.
‘I’ll put you to bed,’ he said, and leaned in to kiss her.
She turned her head and stepped to the side. She had this look of both amusement and distaste.
‘God, no, Jules. I’ve had quite enough of that for one evening.’
Amusement and distaste. It was so unthinkable to her as to be ridiculous. She was laughing at him. Taunting him. Tempting him, flaunting herself in the most obscene ways possible, then spurning him when he rose to the bait.
Hate. Want. Hate. Want.
Something took possession of him there among the ancient trees, a demon of the woods. Something that had lurked there for aeons, older than humans: something that feeds off the worst in men and further emboldens them. When there is a wanton will in man to seek the darkness, then there is something out there that listens, and it whispers back. The ritual had summoned it forth. There was no need for the sacrifice to be real: the wickedness at its heart was real enough. It called out to evil and invited it inside.
He was no longer himself.
Hate. Want.
He wrestled her to the floor. She went down so easily, resistance and coordination dulled by drink and drugs. There was something almost compliant about it, accepting, resigned. It was proof of what she was: she didn’t even have the dignity to struggle.
But as he pulled her legs apart, her face inches from his, she spoke.
‘Enjoy it, you prick. This is the only way you’ll ever get a woman.’
Hate. Hate. Hate.
He grabbed her head and banged it against the ground; banged it again and again and again. The hood slipped further forward in his throes of rage, rendering him faceless. He was not himself. He was the instrument of the demon, the demon of the woods.
Then in its final, calculated malice, it suddenly departed. He was himself once more, but a self changed utterly, cast into hell.
God forgives. If there was a single most vital underpinning to all faith, all hope, it was this: God forgives. Julian did not merely believe this, though: he knew it, because God had made His forgiveness known in the shape of a gift.
The next day, as he sat there, wretched in his numb horror, hoping his crime was not readable upon his very countenance, there came a miraculous revelation. Hamish informed them all that Tessa had walked out, abandoning the production, and as they attempted to solve the crisis it was suggested Saffron might be a suitable replacement. Finlay had gone to Saffron’s house, and the discovery of her absence should have been the beginning of the end. Instead Finlay reported that he’d spoken to her. He’d found her home, but she would not come out. Darius confessed that things had gone a little too far the night before, he and Murray assuming Saffron was ashamed to face them after what they had all engaged in together.
How could he have spoken to Saffron? How could she be alive? He had killed her, dragged her body to the old well and dropped it down where he hoped it might never be discovered.
That was when he realised he’d been seen. Hamish said Tessa had left to catch the last bus to Inverness. She would have been walking towards the main gate as he laboured to transport Saffron’s body to its final resting place. She had seen and yet she had stayed silent; furthermore, she had gone to Saffron’s house and imitated her voice when Finlay came to call. She had walked out on the company and on Hamish. The production was falling apart, nobody would deny it, but why would she leave without notice, under cover of night?
She was running from something, he did not know what, but she had found a perfect place to hide. She would not come forward, because to do so would be to instigate mutually assured destruction.
He was reprieved. A gift from God.
God forgives.
But a sin this black still called for great penitence, and he would pay it willingly. He would dedicate his life to others. He would lead a life of humility, of endeavour, of sacrifice. He would seek no glory, but be the conduit, the facilitator by which others may succeed. He would never forget his crime, and never cease paying his debt.
The Tyrant’s Power Afoot
‘The cameraman had to be Julian Sanquhar,’ Jasmine said. ‘Murray lied to us about being with him in the kitchen. He was with him all right, but he was a safe alibi to give because he knew Julian would never admit to us what they were both really doing. And he said Tormod came charging in at one point because he knew Tormod had been in such a state of hysteria that he wouldn’t remember either way.’
‘So why didn’t Darius mention to us that Sanquhar was involved?’ asked Fallan.
‘He was protecting Julian’s reputation,’ said Tessa. ‘Darius learned first-hand what it’s like to be monstered by the press, and he knew it would ruin Julian if it could be spun that he’d once been involved in making horror and porn.’
‘Would he do that?’ Fallan asked. ‘Spare him, I mean. He didn’t owe him anything.’
‘It’s consistent,’ Jasmine said. ‘Darius could have had him on toast back when there was that Screen Scotland controversy.’
‘Darius was a bit wild and arrogant in his day,’ said Tessa, ‘but he was never spiteful. I recall during that funding row he said in his statement he didn’t believe Julian had ever actually seen a horror movie. I can see now that that was him letting Julian know he could have thrown him to the lions.’
‘But maybe there’s a reason Darius didn’t want that can of worms re-opened either,’ Fallan suggested. ‘We know Darius can shoot. Can Sanquhar use a rifle?’
‘He was in Afghanistan,’ Tessa replied. ‘He made two radio series over there, Voices of Camp Bastion
and the follow-up, Voices Beyond Camp Bastion. It’s possible somebody gave him some training. But why would he shoot Hamish? Nobody but me knew Saffron was dead.’
‘Maybe he missed,’ said Fallan darkly.
‘What do you …’ Tessa began. Then she understood.
‘Oh God. He was standing right behind me. The cast were in a kind of tableau, and I was crouched on one knee.’
‘You were the target all along,’ said Fallan. ‘Once Jasmine started asking questions about Tessa Garrion, the killer knew he had to eliminate the one person who knew the truth.’
Tessa looked sick again, the memory of Hamish Queen’s murder presumably now taking on an even more disturbing aspect for her.
‘Darius and Julian are about the same build,’ Jasmine said, weighing up what they might now deduce. ‘So it could have—’
‘It was Julian,’ said Tessa with grave certainty. ‘He knew where to find me. He knew about the Moonlight Shakespeare performances: he’d been to one, a few years back. I never saw him, but I heard somebody say he was in the audience that night. You know: ‘Ooh, the head of Arts Council Scotland. Maybe we’ll get a grant.’ I was terrified he’d recognise me. Only Hamish knew who I was. I thought I’d be all right in make-up, but we always mingled after the show. Fortunately, I heard he left before the end.’
‘Because he was as scared as you of meeting face to face,’ Jasmine said. ‘He had worked out what you’d done, but he couldn’t be sure how much you had seen. But if he left before the end, how could he know there would be a photo call? You were in the spotlight half the night, but he took his shot after the final act.’
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