Lamb to the Slaughter

by Aline Templeton

  He’d have problems getting at Giles Farquharson, though. He stood to benefit most directly, which had to put him right up there as a suspect – especially if he believed his uncle was about to refuse ALCO’s offer and lose him hundreds of ­thousands. But Tam couldn’t march up to the front door and ask for a chat, and he could hardly pretend to be interested in paint-balling or motocross next.

  Probably his best bet was to drop in on Annie Brown. She’d been one of their neighbours when he and Bunty were first married, before they’d moved to the larger villa which gave Bunty scope for her mission to mother anything with four legs or, even more often, with three – a mission he’d never questioned since he knew the heartache of childlessness which had prompted it.

  Annie was a good soul and she’d been fond of the Colonel. It would be no more than a neighbourly act to drop in and see how she was. And Annie would know all there was to know about Farquharson’s relationship with his uncle.

  Tam was feeling better. He sat up. Home first for lunch, then he’d tell Bunty he planned to have a good long walk. She and the doctor were keen on good walks. She’d probably insist he took a couple of their present lodgers with him, but fortunately dogs weren’t in a position to clype and tell her they’d been shut up in the car for most of the afternoon.

  He’d drop in at MacLaren’s and Blair’s shops, then pay a visit to Annie. That was a good, clear plan of action. Nothing wrong with his brain.

  And he’d finish off by dropping in at the Salutation. Even if he couldn’t find a colleague prepared to defy Big Marge, the local grapevine would no doubt be able to tell him everything the police had been doing today. He drove off with a lighter heart.

  Romy Kyle, with her ear protectors on and her back to the door, was hammering with a wooden mallet at the edge of a round of Britannia silver which was on its way to becoming a beaker. She didn’t hear her partner approaching, and only realised with a start that he was there when he came into her line of vision.

  ‘Well,’ she said, pulling the headpiece down to hang round her neck, ‘this is an unexpected honour. Something wrong?’

  She couldn’t remember the last time Pete had come to the workshop. Perhaps seeing her skill made him feel inadequate or something, but there wasn’t a lot she could do about that.

  He came over to her, tipped her chin up and kissed her on the mouth and, as always, she couldn’t help responding. She could be clear-minded about Pete when he wasn’t there, touching her, but the physical side of their life together, she often thought, was actually addictive, blotting out everything else.

  He released her slowly, then smiled down at her. ‘You do worry about me, don’t you? No, there’s nothing wrong. Just thought I’d pop in and say hi.’ He picked up a silver bracelet from the counter display and fiddled with it, draping it over his wrist to admire the effect, without looking at her.

  Romy’s heart sank. This wasn’t normal – what the hell had he been up to this time? ‘Hi, then,’ she said warily, picking up a cloth and needlessly polishing the piece she had been beating.

  ‘Had the police round then, have you?’ Pete asked with elaborate casualness. ‘I was in a shop and someone there was saying they’d seen them coming in.’ He’d put down the bracelet and picked up a dangly earring now and was squinting in the small mirror on the counter as he held it up to his ear.

  ‘That’s right. Just going through the motions – did I know anything, which I don’t; did I suspect anyone, which I do – that sod Gloag or one of his pals; what were my own movements—?’

  ‘What did you say?’ he interrupted.

  ‘What did you expect me to say?’ She had a cold feeling in the pit of her stomach. ‘I told them I was here till I went home to make supper.’

  ‘Did you say anything about me?’

  ‘They didn’t ask me anything about you, Pete, if that’s what’s bothering you. I said Barney was at home but I didn’t say you weren’t.’

  ‘So you could say I was,’ he said eagerly. ‘That you just hadn’t thought to mention it.’

  ‘I could. But it wouldn’t be true.’ Romy put down what she was holding. ‘Pete, look at me. What’s this about?’

  ‘Nothing,’ he said vehemently. ‘Nothing at all. Except that I know how their minds work. First thing they’ll do, they’ll go to the files, see who’s got a record. Saves time, you see, if they can lean on some poor bastard, scare them into a confession. I just don’t want to be the poor bastard they pick on.’

  ‘You’re paranoid,’ Romy said flatly, relief surging through her. She’d been afraid it really was something serious and she knew that whatever it was, whatever it cost her, she would still have protected him. ‘Listen, love – there isn’t a reason in the world for them to suspect you. You were caught in a silly scam, but you’ve kept your nose clean since and there’s never been a question of violence. I should think the only time you’ve even held a shotgun was when Danny took you to shoot clays that time.’

  ‘For God’s sake, don’t tell them that!’ he cried. ‘That would be all they’d need.’

  Romy picked up the silver round again. ‘You’re just being stupid now. Look, I’ve got work to do.’ She was just about to replace her ear protectors when she stopped. ‘There isn’t anything to connect you to Andrew, is there – I mean, apart from this place?’

  ‘Of course not. I’m probably just being paranoid, like you said.’ He gave her a big, confident smile. ‘I’ll get out of your hair, then. But you’ll watch what you say to the filth, won’t you?’

  She grunted, settling the ear-muffs in place again. He went out, but she didn’t immediately go back to her work. Her lovely Pete, charming, feckless and amiable, would never have harmed Andrew, of course he wouldn’t. She had to believe that, even if it left her with questions she wasn’t sure she wanted answered.

  ‘Do you suppose someone actually designed that, or did someone just get a Lego set with real bricks for Christmas one year?’ Tansy Kerr viewed the Scottish baronial front of Ravenshill House with some amazement.

  ‘If they did, it was something they dreamed after a heavy supper,’ Will Wilson agreed as they parked on the gravel square outside the front door. ‘Nice view, though.’

  The house stood on rising ground and beyond the mature trees in the parkland in front, moorland stretched to forest-clad hills. In front of the mullioned windows to the left of the imposing entrance, a sculpture group showed a stag having its throat torn out by three leaping hounds.

  Wilson pointed. ‘Nice thing to look at when you open the curtains in the morning.’

  Kerr shuddered. ‘No wonder Ossian’s weird. What do you reckon the parents are like?’ They walked into the ornamented stone porch, then she pulled a brass bell-handle and heard a clanging somewhere inside.

  The heavy wooden door was opened quite promptly by a man who, while his appearance fitted perfectly with his surroundings, looked a most unlikely father for the Byronic Ossian. Murdoch Forbes-Graham had iron-grey hair, the reddened face of a man who spent much of his time outdoors, and a paunch and jowls which suggested more time enthusiastically spent with a decanter of vintage port after a hearty dinner.

  ‘Yes?’ He looked from one to the other without enthusiasm.

  Wilson showed his warrant card. ‘DCs Wilson and Kerr. May we have a word, sir?’

  ‘Ah, is it to do with this most unfortunate Carmichael affair? You’d better come in, then. I’ll call my wife.’

  The hall was cavernous, with a positive forest of stags’ antlers on the walls. At the foot of an oppressively carved staircase a huge, moth-eaten stuffed bear reared up in a threatening pose. Forbes-Graham, cupping his hands round his mouth, shouted up, ‘Deirdre!’ There was a muffled response and he called again, ‘In the morning room!’ then, turning to the officers, said, ‘This way.’

  As they followed him across the polished parquet floor, Kerr reflected that a son like Ossian must be a considerable disappointment to a man like this, who would surely pr
efer a rugger-bugger type. Like Rory Douglas, whom she’d vowed never to think of again. And she didn’t, not much. Not now. She stole a sideways glance at Will.

  The morning room was at the back of the house, with low windows looking out over an expanse of smooth green lawn. It had a massive oak mantelpiece with a high brass fender topped with green leather cushioning you could sit on and the furnishing of the room was conventional – two sofas facing each other across a huge tapestried stool piled with back numbers of Country Life and Scottish Field, as well as books you would need a small crane to lift, with covers featuring houses and gardens so lush and inviting that they classed as property porn.

  What was astonishing, though, was the pictures on the walls. There were no representations of stags at bay here, nor improbably purple mountains with a Highland cow or three, and not even a mounted salmon in a glass case. What hung on the walls was modern, three huge artworks which Kerr had no difficulty in recognising as produced by Ossian.

  Forbes-Graham saw she was looking at them. ‘My son’s work,’ he said with unmistakable pride. ‘Do you like them?’

  Kerr was able to say, quite truthfully, that she did, and he beamed. ‘Ossian is a seriously talented artist, internationally recognised. Do you know what his most recent paintings sell for?’

  He mentioned a figure which sent Kerr’s eyebrows shooting up almost into her hair. Perhaps that explained the man’s admiration for his son – money would talk, where he was concerned.

  A woman came into the room. She was wearing what Kerr thought of as wispy clothes, layers of soft blue fabric and a couple of scarves that fluttered when she moved in a way which somehow made her edges look blurred. She had greying fair hair, worn long, and with her good bone structure and a softer version of Ossian’s blue eyes she must once have been a very pretty woman, though middle age had slackened and wrinkled her pale, fine skin. She drifted across to settle on one of the sofas; Forbes-Graham took his place beside her and she waved the detectives to the sofa opposite.

  As Wilson made the introductions, Kerr studied the pair with some interest. They were older than you might expect Ossian’s parents to be – had someone said this was a second marriage? – and hers were evidently the dominant genes when it came to their son. From the way her husband deferred to her, Kerr wondered whether she was the stronger character too, despite her delicate appearance.

  Forbes-Graham was looking at her fondly. ‘It’s my wife who is the artistic one, obviously. I’m just a simple farmer.’

  Deirdre looked up at him from under her lashes, smiling. ‘If it weren’t for the practical people, artists couldn’t flourish, could they?’

  It was a flirtatious performance. She clearly had her husband wrapped round her little finger.

  Wilson was taking the lead in questioning. Kerr didn’t mind; it seemed natural, somehow, and she took out her notebook and discreetly began scribbling.

  ‘We have obviously spoken to your son about the events of last Saturday, as one of Colonel Carmichael’s tenants—’

  Forbes-Graham bristled immediately. ‘And what is that supposed to mean?’

  ‘Nothing at all, sir. Entirely routine. He was unable to recall precisely what his movements were on Saturday—’

  ‘This is a disgrace! Are you suggesting that my son has to account for his movements—?’

  His wife put a thin, blue-veined hand on his knee. ‘Darling,’ she said so gently that he was immediately quelled, ‘you’re making it sound as if Ossian might have something to hide. Which of course he doesn’t.’

  She turned a charming smile on the detectives and as her husband subsided, muttering, ‘Of course. Sorry,’ Kerr was suddenly reminded of something she’d read in a magazine once: ‘Any woman can manage a clever man, but it takes a very clever woman to manage a fool.’ Deirdre Forbes-Graham might be a very clever woman.

  Now she was saying to Wilson, ‘Tell me what it is that my son’s told you that you don’t believe.’ She made a charming joke of it, and Wilson smiled back.

  ‘No, no,’ he protested. ‘It’s nothing like that.’

  Isn’t it? Kerr gave him a dagger look: Will was just a bit too susceptible to feminine charm – but perhaps she didn’t want to go there.

  He didn’t notice. ‘It’s only that he didn’t remember his movements clearly on Saturday, after he left the Craft Centre. He thought he might have come home—’

  ‘Might have!’ Deirdre gave a silvery laugh. ‘That really is Ossian all over. Of course he did! I can’t tell you exactly when he left, but it was to go to the meeting about the superstore – those dreadful people!’ She wrinkled her nose in distaste. ‘When he came in, he popped his head round the door of my studio to say hello. I’m an artist too, but in a very small way.’

  ‘I wouldn’t say that,’ Forbes-Graham protested, and she rewarded him with another smile.

  ‘I know, darling, but that’s because you’re very sweetly biased and a complete philistine.’

  Oh, clever, Kerr thought. A pat on the head and a kick back into the gutter in a oner. She stepped in.

  ‘Mrs Forbes-Graham, we’re looking for a precise time,’ she said, earning herself a venomous look.

  ‘Artists are notoriously vague about time, I’m afraid. But I should think we could work it out if you give me the time Ossian left the studio.’

  Sure she could! ‘The thing is,’ Kerr said quickly before Wilson had a chance to oblige with the information, ‘he wasn’t absolutely clear about that. We may find someone who saw him leave, but after that he mentioned taking a walk.’

  ‘I – see.’ Deirdre frowned. ‘So what is the time-frame you’re interested in?’

  It was blatant enough even for Wilson to see what she was up to. ‘I’m afraid that’s not something we can tell you at this stage,’ he said stiffly. ‘It would help if you could give us your recollection, as precisely as possible.’

  She thought for a moment. ‘It’s always hard to be sure one is thinking of the right day – Saturday, not Friday or Thursday. But I’m fairly sure it would have been somewhere around half-past four or five that he came back. Would that fit with the information you have?’

  If not, I can always change it – that was the implication. Wilson ignored her. ‘Mr Forbes-Graham, did you see your son on Saturday, late afternoon?’

  The man was visibly uncomfortable. ‘I’m not sure I can recall, exactly—’

  Deirdre gave another tinkling laugh. ‘Oh, my love, your memory! Of course you do! You were up checking the arrangements for the clay-pigeon shoot on Sunday and when you came back Ossian was just having a bite to eat in the kitchen before he went out to the meeting. Remember now?’

  Her tone was playful but Kerr noticed that her hands were restlessly plucking at the fringe of one of her scarves.

  ‘Oh – oh yes, that’s right.’ Forbes-Graham gamely followed her lead. ‘The clay-pigeon shoot – had some chaps coming next day and there was a query about the stands.’ He was clearly on firmer ground now. ‘Young Simpson phoned. He couldn’t find Giles, so I had to pop up myself.’

  ‘And then you came back, when Ossian was just finishing his sandwich,’ Deirdre prompted him again.

  ‘I said that, didn’t I?’ He was starting to sound defensive.

  Quit while you’re ahead, Kerr thought, and Deirdre seemed to have worked that out for herself. She got up. ‘If there isn’t anything else—?’

  The officers rose too. Wilson said, ‘Thank you for your help, Mrs Forbes-Graham. All right, Tansy?’

  She nodded, then, looking up at one of the paintings, said innocently, ‘Is your son working on something at the moment, Mr Forbes-Graham?’

  He was clearly pleased that the conversation had turned. ‘He’s having a bit of a problem just now, for some reason. Very up and down, is Ossian – painting like a demon for a while, half the night, sometimes, and barely sleeping. Then of course he’s so worn out he gets depressed and can hardly get out of bed. Worries me a bit, to tell the t
ruth.’

  Deirdre intervened. ‘My husband finds it very hard to understand the artistic temperament. All we artists are volatile – never sure when inspiration will strike again. It’s perfectly normal.’

  She stepped forward and somehow Kerr and Wilson found themselves wafted inexorably out of the front door.

  ‘No alibi,’ Kerr said quietly as they reached the car. ‘And she’s desperate to cover up for him, for some reason. Why? We’re just asking routine questions.’

  Getting into the driver’s seat, Wilson agreed. ‘I tell you something. I read a book where someone had manic depression. Sounded like Forbes-Graham.’

  ‘Off his trolley?’

  ‘Tansy, using words like that gets you sent on a course. Don’t you know anything?’ But he was grinning as he drove away. ‘He’s not what you’d call a stable personality, that’s for sure.’

  ‘Hmm.’ Kerr digested that. ‘I think, if I was Ellie Burnett,’ she said slowly, ‘I’d be pretty careful about locking my door at night.’

  Fleming was restless. She had read such reports as had reached her and summarised them for her report, she had attended the autopsy on the Colonel’s body, she had briefed the Procurator Fiscal, she had even started her policy book, recording her decisions and the rationale behind them, so that someone with the benefit of hindsight could go through them later and say how stupid they had been. She could, of course, make a start on assessing budgetary implications but that was so profoundly unappetising that it could wait.

  She was suffering, as she sometimes did, from nostalgia for the days when she would have been out there, doing the tedious, boring job in the perpetual hope that the next routine interview would produce the breakthrough, whether it was petty crime you were talking about, or murder.

  Nothing so far had emerged that would justify a personal follow-up from the Senior Investigating Officer, but sitting at her desk waiting patiently had never been Fleming’s style. If Tam had been around, she’d have called him in for a brain-storming session, but if she tried that with her present team, they’d be off like bloodhounds, following up on her random thoughts.