Lamb to the Slaughter

by Aline Templeton

  ‘But she could have something useful to tell us. She’s in the middle of it all – close to the Colonel, Ossian’s obsessed with her, her son’s Kyle’s best friend. And I tell you the other thing. She’s shacked up, apparently, with Johnny Black. Now he’s someone I really am interested in.’

  ‘Black?’ MacNee raised his eyebrows. ‘Motive? Jealousy of Ellie’s relationship with the Colonel? Seems far-fetched to me.’

  ‘No, not that. Zack Salaman – the heir, you know?’

  ‘Oh aye. It’s the talk of the town.’

  ‘He was seen going into the motorbike showroom.’

  ‘By me,’ MacNee said smugly.

  ‘Oh? For some odd reason, Andy Mac didn’t mention that. But I think we can assume that the detective Salaman hired to find his father was Johnny Black. He was running an agency in Glasgow, and I’d like to know why he threw it up and came to settle here.’

  ‘Saw Ellie.’ MacNee’s response was prompt.

  ‘Saw her?’

  ‘You’ve never seen Ellie, have you? She sings in some of the pubs – the Cutty Sark, quite often. There’s just – I don’t know. Something about her.’

  Fleming was amused. ‘Tam, you’ve gone all misty-eyed.’

  ‘Don’t be daft!’ he said gruffly. ‘She’s bonny, right enough, and she’s a voice that would charm the birds out the trees – but there’s something else...’

  ‘She’s got “It”?’ she suggested sardonically. ‘You’re going quite pink!’

  ‘I’m trying to explain,’ he said with dignity. ‘But I’m not sure I can. It’s like Rabbie’s Bonnie Lesley – “To see her is to love her”. You’ll understand once you meet her.’

  ‘Or maybe not. Sounds to me like a guy thing. But you’re saying this could be enough to make him throw up a business in Glasgow, and come here to work in a shop?’

  ‘Well, maybe it wasn’t such a great job, being a private eye in Glasgow, spying for jealous wives. There’s plenty folk come here and think it’s a great place to stay. And he’s daft about motorbikes – does the motocross and stuff. Could be his dream ticket.’

  Fleming was unconvinced. ‘If you ask me, Ellie and the lifestyle are a bonus. My bet is that Salaman has been retaining him to stay down here, and it has crossed my mind to wonder exactly what he might have been paying him to do. There’s a huge amount of anger against his grandfather there, rigidly suppressed. I could see it when he said that his mother had never been acknowledged because Carmichael “wanted to spare his wife” – and you can understand that. It’s humiliating, and he’s a proud man, proud and I should think ruthless when he needs to be. You’d want revenge, wouldn’t you?’

  ‘Black as a hit man?’ MacNee was startled. ‘Did you check his record?’

  ‘Hasn’t got one. Tansy ran a computer check. The agency’s listed as being licensed too, with nothing recorded against it till it closed down.

  ‘Anyway, we’d better get out of here before Gloag comes out and decides to complain that we’re harassing him.’ She started the engine. ‘We’ll go to the Craft Centre this afternoon. But meantime, we’re heading back to the canteen.’

  ‘I’m not—’ protested MacNee, but she cut across him.

  ‘I don’t care whether you’re hungry or not. You’re only just back to work and you’re going to eat properly. And I’ll tell you the other thing – you’re going home when the shift finishes, and I’m going to phone Bunty and tell her to expect you.’

  With MacNee grumbling beside her, she drove back to the station.

  He really was in a worse state than she’d ever seen him in before – grey-skinned and sweaty, shaky on his legs. In the quarter of an hour he’d been downstairs he’d twice had to head off for another session in the loo.

  Fiona Farquharson looked in revulsion at her husband, sitting at the kitchen table staring glassily at the mug of black coffee she had dumped in front of him. That was her best offer: he could stagger to the bathroom cabinet to fetch his own Alka-Seltzer.

  Without Giles as an awful warning, she’d have been tempted to hit the bottle herself this morning. Every so often, little waves of horror would engulf her as scenes from last night replayed over and over in her head: the shocked embarrassment of everyone round about; Black and Simpson carrying her husband out like a sack of potatoes; Deirdre Forbes-Graham saying in that terrible, kind voice that Fiona must just go home and not worry about her responsibilities; herself with her face aflame marching out as the ranks of guests separated silently to let her through; the swell of excited voices behind her as she shut the door.

  Worst of all had been the superior expression of pained disgust on the face of the little sod who had stolen Giles’s inheritance. For a wild moment Fiona had even considered wiping it off with a couple of slaps, but from somewhere she’d found the strength to control herself and leave with the pitiful shreds of her dignity still wrapped about her.

  She’d been on tenterhooks all morning, expecting the phone call from Murdoch which would terminate Giles’s employment. And then what would they do? People would hardly be queuing up to engage her to cater their parties – humiliating disasters a speciality – and even if they did, all she could make out of it was pin money, and not very adequate pin money at that.

  Giles looked up at her pathetically. The whites of his eyes were muddy, streaked with tiny red veins. ‘I feel ghastly,’ he said.

  ‘So you bloody ought to,’ Fiona snapped. ‘Do you even remember what happened last night?’

  ‘Not – not clearly.’ It sounded as if his tongue was sticking to the roof of his mouth. ‘Not really at all, actually.’

  The next five minutes were quite enjoyable, in a sick sort of way, and Fiona spared him nothing. She would have said his colour was as bad as it could possibly be, but she was wrong. By the time she had reached the point in the recital where he had called Salaman a wog, it had gone from being the colour of Farrow and Ball ‘String’ to something more like ‘Cooking Apple Green’.

  ‘I called him a wog?’

  ‘And passed out in front of everyone,’ she repeated ­unnecessarily. ‘Black and Simpson had to carry you out.’

  ‘Excuse me.’ He pushed back his chair and rushed out again.

  Oh, for heaven’s sake! Calling the man a wog was the very least of their problems. The thought police were unlikely to be in attendance and Fiona had a shrewd suspicion that quite a number of people there would have sniggered quietly. She couldn’t see Salaman going down well in local society.

  This felt as if she was living in a nightmare, with her whole life disintegrating round about her. After all she’d done! She couldn’t bear to think about it. Her heart was racing.

  This wouldn’t do. She simply must not go there. There were plenty more immediate problems.

  After a moment’s thought, she went to the cupboard where she kept the cooking brandy and when Giles came back, shakily wiping his mouth, she indicated the tumbler she had put on the table, filled with a dubious dark gold liquid.

  ‘Hair of the dog. I know it’s meant to be the start of the slippery slope, but in my reckoning you’re well down it already. Get that inside you,’ she said brutally.

  Giles sat down and obediently took a sip, then spluttered. ‘This is absolutely disgusting!’

  ‘Don’t think I’m going to waste decent brandy on you in your present state. Think of it as medicine – and the more unpleasant it is, the more I’m going to enjoy watching you drink it.’

  He grimaced, but worked his way through it, and she saw his colour gradually improve. When he picked up his coffee mug and took a mouthful, and then another, without it ­provoking an immediate rush for the door, Fiona said, ‘Giles, if you’re in a fit condition to think, we’ve a lot of important things to discuss.’

  ‘Oh God, I suppose we do. What – now?’

  She was opening her mouth to say, ‘When else?’ when the door-bell rang. It was an old-fashioned pull-bell which clanged throughout the house and Giles m
oaned, clutching his head in his hands.

  For a moment Fiona didn’t move. She didn’t know who had rung the bell, but she knew it meant trouble.

  Macdonald was a little taken aback by Fiona Farquharson’s appearance. When he’d met her last, she’d been looking stressed, certainly, but ... well preserved, that was the unkind way of putting it. Now it looked as if she hadn’t so much as glanced in a mirror this morning; her skin was dingy and sallow and her hair uncombed, showing dark roots.

  ‘May we come in? Just a couple of questions...’

  ‘If you must. My husband’s in the kitchen.’

  The previous interview had taken place in the chintzy ­drawing-room and she’d been very much on her high horse. Maybe, Macdonald thought, the kitchen setting would produce less studied answers.

  If she looked bad, her husband looked worse. As he and Campbell came in, Farquharson turned his head to look at them with bleary eyes, then recoiled visibly, muttering, ‘Oh God!’ He was reeking of alcohol.

  ‘Would you like coffee? I’m just making some more for myself.’

  It was a routine offer of hospitality, but as Fiona busied herself setting out the mugs, milk and sugar, then fetched tins to put home-made biscuits on a plate, Macdonald began to wonder if it might not have been to give herself time to prepare for whatever she might be asked.

  When at last they were supplied and she sat down herself, she leaned forward confidentially. ‘I’m afraid you find us both a little shaken this morning, sergeant. We had a rather – well, a very unpleasant experience last night.’

  Judging by Farquharson’s appearance this morning, ‘shaken’ must be the new ‘tired and emotional’. ‘I’m sorry to hear that,’ Macdonald said with appropriate gravity.

  ‘We were attending a party and were suddenly confronted with my husband’s uncle’s heir. We had no idea of his existence, let alone his,’ she paused, ‘nationality.’

  Macdonald was startled. His auntie had known all about it, the day after Salaman hit Kirkluce, which presumably meant that everyone else did too. Everyone except, apparently, those most directly affected. ‘I’d have thought the lawyer would have informed you.’

  ‘You would assume that, wouldn’t you?’ She gave a bright, brittle smile. ‘But no. Presumably he is too embarrassed to meet us face to face, having been party to all this.’

  ‘It must have been very difficult for you.’

  ‘It was.’

  From the set of her mouth, that was the end of the conversation. Macdonald went on, ‘We really called to ask you some questions about Monday night – when Barney Kyle was killed.’

  Campbell put down his second piece of shortbread and took out his notebook, a formal move which, Macdonald acknowledged, created a more alarmingly official atmosphere.

  She looked dismayed, and her hands gripped the edge of the table. ‘But – but it was on the news – it’s a sniper! I could understand last time this sort of question having to be asked, with Giles being Uncle Andrew’s heir – as we thought – but this is inexcusable! To suggest that we might have had anything to do with this other death – a boy we didn’t even know!’

  ‘Well ...’ Farquharson spoke for the first time. ‘I knew him. He and his friends used to come to the motocross trials, hanging around Johnny Black.’

  ‘You never told me that!’ Fiona cried, looking at him in consternation.

  ‘Why would I?’ he said simply.

  Macdonald could see her working hard at pulling herself together. ‘Anyway,’ she managed at last, ‘shouldn’t you be looking for some unbalanced loner? You’re not suggesting that either of us goes out with a gun and picks people off at random?’

  ‘I’m afraid you shouldn’t believe everything the media tells you, Mrs Farquharson. We are still pursuing our enquiries, and if you and your husband would be kind enough to detail your movements, the night before last...?’

  Fiona got up and carried her mug to the sink, though she hadn’t finished her coffee. ‘Simple enough,’ she said, her back turned as she rinsed the mug under the tap. ‘I was doing the catering for the Forbes-Grahams’ party last night so I was here in the kitchen, preparing food – as usual – and my husband was in his office, doing the accounts. Weren’t you, darling?’

  His look of surprise might only have been in reaction to the endearment, so out of keeping with his wife’s tone of voice. But he said, ‘Yes, that’s right,’ and lapsed again into silence.

  ‘So I’m afraid that’s all there is to it – another exciting evening chez Farquharson.’ She seemed more confident now, picking up their coffee mugs and putting them in the sink as a signal that she expected them to leave.

  At a nod from Macdonald, Campbell stood up, still munching. ‘Great shortbread,’ he said.

  Macdonald gave him an exasperated look. ‘Thank you, Mrs Farquharson. We’ve noted that, and someone may come back to you to take a formal statement.’

  She inclined her head, then said suddenly, ‘Wait a minute. I’ve just remembered something. If you’re still investigating Uncle Andrew’s murder, I think you should know this.’

  After they had gone, Farquharson looked at his wife. ‘You must be mad,’ he said quietly. ‘What if they check up?’

  She tossed her head. ‘They won’t bother. Not now I’ve given them something else to think about. No thanks to you, though. If it was left to you, we’d be their prime suspects.’

  18

  The canteen was busy today. With so much activity centred on Kirkluce and its near surroundings, and the addition of a number of officers seconded from the neighbouring Dumfries force, there was standing room only when Fleming and MacNee arrived.

  MacNee’s appearance was greeted with shouts and even a smattering of applause, and colleagues took turns to shake his hand and slap him on the back with cheerful insults.

  ‘Lucky it was only your head, eh, Tam?’

  ‘Auld Nick looks after his own, right enough!’

  ‘It’s been rare and peaceful without you – now the trouble starts.’

  Fleming looked on, amused. Tam was popular, certainly, but the news channel running on the TV in the corner was a perpetual reminder of the pressure they were under, and contributing to his welcome was an almost superstitious belief that Tam’s return would signal some improvement in their fortunes. She wasn’t immune to the feeling herself.

  Tansy Kerr and Will Wilson, who had been sitting at the far end of a table for eight, got up and elbowed their way through. Tansy, moist-eyed, gave him a hug: she’d always been close to Tam, and Fleming promised herself that once this was over she’d see to it that the dangerous partnership of Wilson and Kerr was broken up.

  ‘There’s a seat there, boss, if you want one,’ Wilson said to her, but she shook her head.

  ‘I’m just having a sandwich. I only came in to make sure Tam didn’t run himself into the ground on his first day back.’

  MacNee was saying teasingly, ‘Dearie me, Tansy, what’s happened to your hair? It’s all the one colour – that’s not like you!’

  With a sinking heart Fleming observed the telling look that passed between Wilson and Kerr, the slight smile on Wilson’s face and the colour that came into Kerr’s cheeks. She’d been going to have a word with Tam about her worries over the pair of them, but she saw now, as he eyed them shrewdly, that she wouldn’t have to.

  Kerr patted her hair self-consciously. ‘Well – thought I’d try monochrome for a change. More sophisticated, you know.’

  ‘Going for the femme fatale look, aren’t you, Tansy?’ Wilson, not a sensitive man, gave her a broad wink.

  ‘How’s that young man of yours?’ MacNee asked innocently. ‘Seemed a nice lad, when I bumped into the two of you that time. If you’d just convince him to take up the Beautiful Game instead of the ugly one, he’d be all right.’

  ‘He’s history,’ Kerr said shortly.

  ‘Now, that’s a real shame. Still, there’ll be another one along in a minute, I’ve no doubt.’ H
e turned to Wilson. ‘Good to see you, Will. And how’s the family? The boys’ll be getting big now.’

  Wilson shifted uncomfortably. ‘Fine, Tam. And it’s nice to see you’ve decided to stop skiving. You’re looking good.’

  As a diversionary tactic it failed. ‘Bunty was saying she’d met Aileen the other day – expecting again, I hear. Congratulations – you’re gluttons for punishment, you two.’

  Wilson turned crimson. Kerr recoiled, as if someone had slapped her face. ‘Is – is she, Will?’

  ‘Yes, I suppose so,’ he muttered.

  There were only a few people close enough to hear but among them there was foot-shifting and an awkward silence. Kerr said, ‘Excuse me,’ and hurried out. Wilson made to go after her, but MacNee’s hand shot out and grabbed his wrist in a brutal grip.

  ‘Don’t think I’d do that, if I was you.’ Then, very quietly, he added, ‘And don’t think you won’t pay for this, you little bastard.’

  Wilson, looking sick, wrenched his hand away and went back to his seat. MacNee turned round. ‘Now, someone said there was haggis on the slate today. Lead me to it – “great chieftain o’ the puddin’ race!”’

  ‘Oh, someone stop him giving the full “Address”, for any favour!’ someone pleaded, and the laughter that followed dispelled the tension.

  When Murdoch Forbes-Graham came in for lunch, his wife was stirring soup on the stove. He looked round the kitchen. ‘Where is he?’

  ‘He went up to his room after we got back from the doctor’s. I promised I’d call him when lunch was ready.’

  ‘How did it go, then?’

  She turned away from the stove, her delicate features contorted with anxiety. ‘Oh, Murdoch, I’m so worried! The doctor wouldn’t let me stay while he talked to him, and Ossian seemed quite disturbed when he came out. All he would say was that the doctor wants him to see someone else, so he obviously thinks there’s something wrong – you know, mentally, but he simply doesn’t understand!’