Holly, Kincaid saw, had stopped digging and was sit-
ting very still, her face turned away from them. Deep shadow had stolen over the garden, and the lightless house seemed desolate without Hazel’s presence.
“Okay, Tim,” Kincaid said quietly. “Just take it easy.
You’re scaring Holly. Let her come to us—”
“She’s my daughter,” Tim responded, but kept his voice down. “She stays here with me. Now why don’t you just sod off, Duncan, and play knight somewhere else?”
“All right, I’ll go. But first tell me one thing: Where were you this weekend?”
“Why should I?”
“The police will get round to asking you, you know.
Why not tell me, if you’ve nothing to hide?”
Tim gazed out across the garden for a moment, then shrugged. “I went walking. My mum told you.”
“With your friends?”
Kincaid saw Tim hesitate before he said, “No. That fell through. I went on my own.”
Had there ever been any friends? wondered Kincaid.
“Where did you go?”
“Hampshire. I needed to think.”
“Did you see anyone?”
“A few sheep,” answered Tim.
“You must have gone in a pub, a petrol station—”
“Daddy.” Holly had given up her digging and edged her way back to the patio. She watched her father from a foot away, her brow creased with worry.
“Baa.” Tim reached out and gathered her to him, burying his face in her dark hair. “Can you say ‘baa,’ sweetheart?”
Holly pulled away. “Daddy, when’s Mummy coming home? I want Mummy.”
“We’ll manage just fine on our own.” Tim stood and
lifted her up. “I’m going to make you macaroni cheese.
How would you like that?”
Kincaid didn’t see how he could continue questioning Tim without upsetting Holly further. “Tim, ring me if you change your mind,” he said reluctantly, and went out the way he had come in.
Walking round to the front of the house, he stood for a moment, looking back at the darkened windows. He didn’t like leaving the child alone with Tim, but he had no authority to do otherwise. The little girl was obviously sensing her dad’s anger, and missing her mother. Tim Cavendish was a therapist, he told himself, a man who understood the fragility of children, but he feared Tim’s judgment was compromised by his emotions.
Could he contact Tim’s parents, ask them to come back? Tim would protest, he felt sure, but perhaps they’d have more leverage with him.
Had Tim really gone to Hampshire? Kincaid ran a finger over the rain-speckled boot of Tim’s dark blue Peu-geot. The south of England had been dry the entire weekend.
Ross had always been one for expending the least effort necessary to get results, and so he had left Hazel Cavendish alone in an interview room for the afternoon. Oh, he’d sent in sandwiches and coffee—no one could accuse him of ill treatment—but he’d been happy enough to let her stew in solitude while he organized the gathering of information. In his opinion, there was nothing like a few hours in an empty room to induce a confessional state of mind.
In the meantime, he had set in motion a house-to-house inquiry along the Inneses’ road, although the scattered nature of the properties made the results less than promising. He’d assigned an officer to enter all the data
collected into HOLMES, and a family liaison officer to trace Donald Brodie’s living relatives. As well as the team working at Innesfree, he had a team searching Brodie’s house and business, and another team had been delegated to canvas the railway station and nearby shops in Aviemore, in an effort to substantiate Hazel Cavendish’s early-morning movements.
And he had spoken to the press, who had followed him from the crime scene to Aviemore Police Station like vultures after a carcass. Although he knew rumors as to the victim’s identity were flying, he had asked the media to keep such speculations to themselves until any next of kin had been notified.
Only then had he felt ready to interview Hazel Cavendish. He summoned Munro, who appeared looking even more lugubrious than he had earlier in the day. Eey-ore the donkey, thought Ross, that’s who Munro reminded him of—although Munro’s nature was surprisingly optimistic considering his countenance.
“Two things, sir,” said Munro as they clattered down the stairs. “We found Alison Grant’s address here in Aviemore, traced her phone and electricity services. A constable went round, but there was no one at home.
He’ll try again in a bit.”
“Why don’t you go, Sergeant?” suggested Ross. “I’d rather trust your judgment on this one. What else?”
“John Innes’s gun, sir. It’s not licensed. His other two shotguns are, but not the little Purdy.”
Ross was not surprised. “Damn family guns,” he muttered. “Just because there’s no record of purchase, people can’t be bothered. Well, I’ll throw the book at him on this one.” They had reached the interview room. He stopped and automatically straightened his tie. “Now, let’s see how our wee birdie’s getting on.”
Hazel Cavendish stood up abruptly at their entrance, sloshing coffee over the table, then looked round wildly for something to mop it up.
“Sergeant, see if you can grab a kitchen roll,” said Ross. When Munro had gone, he studied the woman before him. Time and isolation had taken their toll, he noticed. The flesh seemed to have molded itself more tightly to the bones of her face, leaving the planes and hollows more pronounced. And he saw that her hands were trembling, although she clasped them together to hide it. The remains of her sandwich lay in the open plastic box, shredded to bits. Ross couldn’t tell that she had actually eaten any of it.
He shook his head disapprovingly. “Ye need to eat, lassie, keep up your strength.”
“What I need,” she countered, facing him across the table, “is to go home and see my daughter.”
“Weel, the sooner you answer our questions satisfacto-rily, the sooner ye can go—although you may be obliged to stay in Scotland for a few more days.” To his delight, it did not seem to have occurred to her that she could refuse to talk to him until she had a lawyer’s counsel, and as he had not actually charged her, he was not obliged to advise her of her rights.
Munro came back, his arrival silencing her protests for the moment. While Munro swabbed the table, Ross turned on the recorder, stated the date and time, and identified the participants.
“Can we get ye some more coffee, Mrs. Cavendish?”
he asked as he sat down. “Munro can fetch it from the machine—”
“No, please, I don’t want anything, except to go home.
I don’t understand why you’ve brought me here.”
“Ach, weel, why don’t we start at the beginning, then.
Tell me about your relationship with the deceased, Donald Brodie.”
She twisted her hands together in her lap but met his gaze directly. “We were close once, years ago, before I was married. But I hadn’t seen him in years.”
“Then how do you explain your row with him after Alison Grant came calling at the B&B last night?”
Her hands tightened, and he heard the small catch of breath in her throat. “You’re mistaken, Chief Inspector.
We didn’t argue.”
“Is that so?” He smiled at her. “Weel, I have it otherwise from a number of sources. How do you explain that, Mrs. Cavendish?”
“I—I don’t know.”
“You and Mr. Brodie went out together after dinner, and you were heard shouting. Now, I would call that a row, myself.”
“I—I was worried about the child. She had a child with her when she came to see him.”
“Alison Grant?”
Hazel nodded. “I was afraid he’d made promises to the woman—to Alison—that would hurt the child.”
“A very noble sentiment, Mrs. Cavendish. And it was that worry drove you to have sex in the woods with Mr.
> Brodie?” Ross thought it worth the gamble that the DNA test on the semen sample found in the woods would give him a positive identification. He knew Hazel Cavendish had been there from the fiber match, and it seemed highly unlikely that she’d been meeting someone else.
Her eyes had widened. “Oh, God,” she whispered, covering her face with her hands.
“It will go easier for ye, lass, if you’ll just tell us the truth,” encouraged Ross at his most sympathetic.
“It wasn’t like that—what you said.” She dropped her
hands, gripping the table edge as if it might anchor her.
“He’d asked me to come. Donald. He wanted me to leave my husband. It wasn’t until I saw that woman and her child that it really hit me what damage we were contemplating. Not just my husband, my daughter, but this woman who cared about him, and her child, and then I saw that it would ripple outwards from there.
“We did argue. I was angry with him, but even angrier with myself. I told him it was never going to work out between us. What we did then . . . in the woods . . . I suppose it was a good-bye.”
“And this morning?”
“I couldn’t face seeing him again. I thought I’d just pack and leave, but there was no train. I decided I had to face up to things, so I came back. And that was when . . .
Gemma told me . . .” She lifted a hand to her mouth, pressing her fingers against quivering lips.
“Why didn’t you tell us this from the start?”
“I was so ashamed. And I suppose I was hoping it wouldn’t have to come out, that my husband wouldn’t have to know.”
That was it, thought Ross, feeling a firecracker fizz of inspiration. That was the reason that made the pieces fit.
Of course she hadn’t wanted her husband to find out, not if she’d made up her mind to go back to him.
“That’s all very plausible, Mrs. Cavendish,” he said.
“But I think that’s not quite how it happened. I think you met Mr. Brodie again this morning, and that when you told him you meant to go back to your husband, he threatened to expose you. Then you found some excuse to take the gun—no, wait.” Ross frowned, working out an even better scenario. “I think you told him last night, and he threatened you then. Was that why you argued? And the sex, you were placating him. Did
you invite him to meet you this morning, a romantic rendezvous? He would never have thought you meant to harm him—”
“No!” Hazel pushed away from the table and stood. “I would never have hurt Donald! How could you even think—”
“Sit ye down, Mrs. Cavendish,” soothed Ross. Having failed to shock her into a confession, he knew he had little hard evidence to support his theory. “If you’ll—”
There was a knock at the interview room door. Munro got up, and as he went out, Ross glimpsed one of the officers assigned to the Aviemore detail.
A moment later, Munro looked in again and said, “Sir, a word with ye . . .”
Ross switched off the tape recorder and joined him in the corridor.
“You’d better hear what P. C. Clarke has to say,”
Munro told him quietly, “before you go any further.”
The constable nodded at him. “Sir. Someone from the car hire office in the railway station recalls seeing a woman matching Mrs. Cavendish’s description early this morning.
He remembered because it was odd to see someone turn up, bags and all, two hours before the scheduled train. He said she sat in the waiting area for half an hour, then went out again.”
“Did he remember the time?” asked Ross, his heart sinking.
“Getting on for six o’clock, sir. He had come in to arrange an early car pickup.”
“All right,” Ross growled. “Get a statement. Then have him make a definite identification.” He turned away, swearing under his breath. That would make it just about the time Inspector James had reported hearing a gunshot, and he bloody well couldn’t make a case on the premise
that Hazel Cavendish had been in two places at the same time.
Gemma left Benvulin when the team arrived to search the offices. With a last glance back at the house, set like a jewel above the river, and the distinctive twin pagodas of the distillery, she got into the BMW and eased the car into the drive. When she reached the road, she hesitated a moment, then turned left, away from Innesfree.
Heather had said she’d bring Pascal back to the B&B
to collect his car later on, so Gemma had no reason to hurry. Nor was she sure the forensics team at the B&B
would have finished their search of the room she shared with Hazel, and the thought of being on the premises while someone went through her belongings made her skin crawl.
But there was more to her reluctance than that, she realized—she just wasn’t ready to face the others, to answer their questions about Hazel, to see those she had considered friends as suspects.
She drove on, absently watching the light and shadow play across the hills, through the hamlet of Nethy Bridge, and then across the Spey and into the planned Victorian town of Grantown-on-Spey. Finding a spot in the car park, she carefully locked the BMW and walked down to the High Street.
Most of the shops were closed, it being a Sunday afternoon, but the newsagents and pubs and cafés seemed to be doing a brisk business. There were people walking purposefully along the pavements, which suited Gemma—she felt the need to be near people doing ordinary things, but she didn’t want to speak to anyone.
“Wallpaper,” Kincaid would say accusingly to her when she got into such a mood. “You want human wallpaper.”
Imagining the sound of his voice made her throat tighten with longing, and she felt a wash of relief as she thought of his arrival tomorrow.
Damn her pride—she must have sounded an ungrateful cow on the phone earlier. Not that she had exactly protested, but he must have heard the reluctance in her voice. How could she have even considered letting her desire to do it all herself—and to get the better of Chief Inspector Ross—get in the way of anything that might help Hazel?
She walked on, trying to put her mind into neutral, admiring the tidy symmetry of Grantown’s High Street, which opened out into a large green at the top end. The town was ringed by the hills that rose above it on the north and west, and by the heavily wooded valley of the Spey on the southeast. It gave the place a secure feel, and as lights began to glow in the windows of the large houses facing the square, she found herself enchanted.
The imposing edifice of the Grant Arms Hotel anchored the square. Gemma was just crossing the greensward to have a better look when the sky darkened and a squall of wind and stinging rain blew up out of nowhere.
Sprinting for the hotel entrance, she darted inside and stood in the lobby, panting and shaking the water from her hair like a drenched dog.
Although she had seen tour coaches parked outside, the hotel appeared comfortably elegant. The woman from the reception desk crossed the lobby, and in a friendly, Highland voice she asked Gemma if there was anything she needed.
“A cup of coffee would be grand,” admitted Gemma, still shivering slightly from her unexpected soaking. “The rain caught me by surprise.”
“That’s the Highlands for you,” the young woman said with a smile. “We pride ourselves on our unpredictabil-ity. The restaurant’s closed until dinner, but I’ll just fetch you a cup from the kitchen, if you don’t mind having it in here.”
Having accepted gladly, Gemma wandered about the lobby as she waited, discovering a small plaque detailing the history of the hotel. When the receptionist returned with her coffee, Gemma said, “I see you had Queen Victoria as a guest.”
“In .” The young woman grinned. “That was the greatest moment in Grantown history, if you can believe it. Still,” she added a bit wistfully, “it must have been grand in those days—all the balls and dinner dances. And the clothes must have been lovely.”
“And bloody uncomfortable,” offered Gemma, and they both laughed. “Can you imagine
corsets?”
When she’d finished her coffee, the rain had stopped.
She went out again onto the green and stood for a moment, looking up at the hotel in the gathering dusk, imagining the square filled with carriages and traps and the chatter of excited voices.
With a sigh of regret, she turned away. She had no business indulging in a fantasy of a happier time. Returning to the car, she phoned the police station in Aviemore and inquired about Hazel. There was a different—and much less accommodating—sergeant on duty, who told her only that he believed Mrs. Cavendish was still with Chief Inspector Ross.
Gemma then rang the bed-and-breakfast and spoke to Louise.
“You’re coming back for supper?” Louise said, an appeal in her voice. “John’s put together a goat cheese tart.
He thought it would suit Hazel . . . he was hoping . . .”
“Don’t count on me,” Gemma told her evasively. “I’ve a few more things to do, and I wouldn’t want to hold you up.” The idea of sitting in the Inneses’ dining room, facing two empty chairs, suddenly struck her as an impossible feat.
But the truth, she realized as she drove slowly out of Grantown, was that she had nothing to do, and her frustration at her lack of control was interfering with her ability to think clearly. She somehow had to let it go, to find a different perspective. She’d stop somewhere, have a pub meal, think things through.
Once on the main road, she passed up the turning for Nethy Bridge and took the next, the route to the village of Boat of Garten. The receptionist had recommended the bar meals in the Boat Hotel there. She found the place easily enough, but as she climbed out of the car, she caught a glimpse of her reflection in the car window. For the first time that day, it occurred to her that she was un-washed, uncombed, and still wearing the clothes she had thrown on before six that morning. Oh, well, she thought, shrugging as she tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, she would just have to do.
Entering the bar, Gemma gave her order and took a table by the window. Over her solitary meal of cock-a-leekie soup, she tried to sort out the events of the day in her mind. So accustomed was she to having Kincaid as a sounding board that she felt handicapped without his presence.
Deborah Crombie - Duncan Kincaid & Gemma James 09 - Now May You Weep dk&gj-9 Page 19