Lamb to the Slaughter

by Aline Templeton

  ‘That won’t be necessary.’ Officially, he ought to thank her for her cooperation, but they’d have to tear his throat open to get those words out. ‘You’re free to go.’

  Fiona Farquharson swept out with one final contemptuous smile. Not trusting himself to speak, MacNee followed her.

  He jerked his head towards the door of the other interview room. ‘Husband’s still in there with the boss, is he?’ and when the duty constable nodded, said acidly, ‘Probably enjoying it more than being at home with his wife.’

  Coming out behind him after collecting the tapes, Kerr said, ‘Tam—’ but he was already on his way down the corridor.

  ‘Something I have to do,’ he said over his shoulder. ‘Back shortly.’

  Kerr stopped, frowning. Oh well, she’d better just get back to her reports – more stuff would no doubt have come in since this morning. She’d speak to him later.

  Fleming was feeling thoroughly annoyed with MacNee. His interview with Fiona Farquharson had been brief, apparently, so there had clearly been no major breakthrough there either, but that didn’t mean he should dash off without reporting.

  She wanted him, mainly, to throw around the idea which had been stirring in her brain since on her latest mind-maps the arrows had all started pointing to one person, and for the first time she had felt the small shiver of excitement suggesting that she might, at last, have caught a glimpse of the trail to follow, as if she was at last at least a player in the mind game. It still wasn’t definite, just a hint of a warped rationale...

  Why a dead sheep, a man well on in years, a boy with his life before him – escalating crimes? She was still a long way from working out the implications, which was where Tam’s thoughts on it would be welcome. But it felt right, somehow.

  So where the hell was Tam? He’d been more bother than he was worth recently, what with the business about Christina Munro’s shotgun, and whatever he’d been up to with Wilson (and that she really didn’t want to know). Now he’d gone AWOL exactly when he was needed.

  Had he got some lead on the murderer that he’d decided to follow up on his own, despite the disastrous consequences of his last attempt at individual enterprise? If he didn’t get hit on the head this time, she’d be tempted to do it herself when he deigned to return.

  MacNee parked the car in the yard outside Christina Munro’s cottage. The front door was open; he banged on it, called, then stepped inside. The main room was empty, but there was a pot simmering gently on the old range. A brace of rabbits, strung by their hind legs from a hook in the ceiling over a newspaper placed to catch bloody drips, was attracting attention from two frustrated cats.

  He went back outside. After the heavy rain last night, it was a golden day, with just a slight breeze to ruffle the hedgerow bushes, whose tired green leaves looked ready to take on their autumn livery with the first frost. The three donkeys were out in the paddock beside the house and when he looked over the fence he could see Christina at the farther end, in her funny crocheted hat, tweeds and heavy-duty waterproof boots which looked too big for her skinny legs. She was heaving at a fence-post which had tilted and he saw her push it vertical with surprising strength, then straighten her back painfully.

  It was the dog that noticed him first, coming lowping across with those great deer-like bounds, ears pricked. It seemed to recognise him; the thin tail tucked between its legs twitched and it put its nose into his outstretched hand when it reached him, studying him with mild, intelligent eyes.

  Then one of the donkeys raised its head. Curious about the stranger, it started towards him, followed by the others, and Christina too had seen him now. She made no gesture of recognition, only began plodding across the field. As she approached, one donkey turned to nudge her and she rubbed its soft muzzle absent-mindedly. The greyhound stepped daintily to her side and the other donkeys were gathering round her too, demanding their share of attention.

  ‘Well, Tam MacNee, what are you after today?’

  MacNee hesitated. On the five-minute drive out to Wester Seton, he hadn’t really had time to plan out his angle of ­questioning. What came to him now was, ‘I just wanted to tell you a story, Christina.’

  She looked at him blankly, then the weather-beaten, nutcracker face split into a smile and she gave a cackle of amusement. ‘It’s been a long, long time since anyone told me a story. I haven’t time to sit and listen so you can take that jacket off, MacNee, and come and give me a hand.’

  Somehow, he found himself doing as he was told and climbing over the fence. His shoes weren’t designed for squelching through mud and there were puddles from last night’s rain to avoid as well as what the donkeys had lavishly deposited. Despite her hobbling gait, Christina moved faster than he did and was waiting for him when he reached the far end with sodden shoes and mud-spattered jeans.

  ‘Hold that steady,’ she ordered, indicating the post, ‘while I shore it up.’ She seized a spade which had been propped against the fence.

  He felt moved to protest.

  ‘Christina, that’s heavy work. Give me the spade—’

  She gave him a scornful look, then began digging with a practised economy of effort he knew he couldn’t match. ‘What about my story, then?’

  Had there ever been a dafter interview with a murder suspect? Still, there was nothing for it now but to get on with it.

  ‘There was once a woman who had a secret affair with a man when she was very young. He used her, then dumped her, and all her life she held a grudge against him. Then years and years later, something happened – I couldn’t quite say what—’

  Christina was growing breathless from her efforts, but she managed to say, ‘Not much of a story if you don’t know what happened.’

  ‘Maybe she found that all these years later he was at it again, taking advantage of a lassie she knew and cared about.’ His eyes lingered on the crocheted hat. ‘Anyway, whatever it was, it set her off. She’d been angry for years. She took a gun – she was a good shot – and she killed him.

  ‘Could be she wasn’t seeing things quite straight at the time. She was being persecuted by some boys and they were scaring her badly. She’d killed once and got away with it so maybe it wasn’t so hard to do it again, and it would be the answer to her problems.

  ‘But she was cunning. She’d two guns, the one she used to fire a harmless shot, the other, bigger one that she’d used already on the Colonel, to kill one of the boys – didn’t matter which. That gun wasn’t found. And she’d got her revenge at last, and the donkeys were safe and she wasn’t scared any more because the boys wouldn’t be back. A story with a happy ending, you could say – if you didn’t mind about a couple of murders on the way through.’

  Christina had stopped digging and straightened up. Now she put down the spade and looked at him squarely.

  ‘Now I’ll tell you a story, Tam. It’s about an old wifie who looked just like me, who lived in a forest in a gingerbread house and one day a boy and girl called Hansel and Gretel came to see her. It’s a fairy story, but it’s a damn’ sight more true to life than the one you’ve just told me.

  ‘You stupid bugger! Oh, arrest me if you like – I was here right enough when that boy was killed and I’ve no one to say I was here too when the Colonel was shot, but it’s God’s truth.

  ‘I never spoke to Andrew Carmichael in my life, didn’t know about any current – activities.’ She sniffed. ‘Always supposing there were any. And you can’t prove I’d another gun, because I didn’t. You can search the place right now. Go on, take it apart if you like, dig up every square inch of the fields – I’ve nothing to hide. But you’re wasting your time, MacNee, and even if you’ve the time to waste, I haven’t. If I don’t get this post set in, the donkeys’ll be out.

  ‘Now, are you going to help me or not?’

  And MacNee, with his heady feeling that he could be on the verge of a breakthrough disappearing like snow off a dyke, held the post meekly while she finished her digging, then helped h
er stamp it firm, before retreating to his car with his tail as markedly between his legs as any greyhound’s.

  ‘Boss?’ DC Kerr put her head tentatively round the door of DI Fleming’s office. ‘Have you a minute?’

  Kerr, too, was feeling irritated with MacNee. She’d been trying to lie low, afraid of what Big Marge might have to say about her own behaviour. She’d suffered a mauling on ­occasion before, and it was an experience she would go a long way to avoid repeating. She’d hoped to give Tam the information that had come her way and have him relay it to the boss, but she’d no idea when he’d reappear, and getting stick for not passing this on as soon as possible wouldn’t be any fun either.

  To her relief, Fleming didn’t seem to be planning to raise the subject of her behaviour. All she said was, ‘Yes, Tansy?’ but she wasn’t looking severe.

  Kerr went over to the desk. ‘I found this with the latest batch of stuff that came through this morning. I thought you’d want to see it as soon as possible.’

  Fleming took the papers she was holding out and glanced at the heading. ‘Oh, a copy of Carmichael’s will – that’s interesting.’ She began flicking through the pages, scanning them.

  ‘There’s one bequest,’ Kerr was saying, when Fleming found it for herself, and her eyebrows shot up. ‘Well, well, well!’

  The bell rang for the period before break. Dylan Burnett slouched out with the rest of the class, then paused in the corridor.

  One of his mates stopped too. ‘Coming for a fag?’

  ‘Nuh. Not just now.’ He didn’t feel like company. The other shrugged, and left him.

  Come to that, he didn’t really feel like school. He’d maybe slide when no one was looking, go back to the shop and have a talk to Johnny.

  It wasn’t difficult. There were loads of kids milling around and he just walked out like he’d permission. Not that he wouldn’t have got it at the moment, if he’d said he wanted to go home, but he didn’t need the hassle. Chances were no one would notice he’d gone.

  Dylan was dead worried about his mother. She’d looked seriously weird this morning – well, she’d looked weird since this whole thing started, but this morning she was weird weird. She’d drifted round as if she was, like, out of it, and he’d seen that Johnny had noticed too.

  He had a nasty cold feeling in the pit of his stomach, telling him it was drugs again. He’d been willing to swear she hadn’t touched them for years and years but he could remember all too well how it had been when he was a kid, with her being scary and no food in their yucky flat. Apart from the odd puff on a spliff, he’d never done them himself, but there were guys he knew who did, and they were like that sometimes.

  Johnny wouldn’t fancy her if she got like that again – how could he? He’d walk, wouldn’t he, and then Dylan would have to stay with her while everything fell apart, or else go back to his dad and spend his life being trailed round manky wee towns, minding the shooting gallery and spinning the cars on the waltzer. Who wanted to live like that?

  Watching TV last night with Johnny had been so cool, like they were a regular family. He’d never really had a proper father. Barney hadn’t either, which was probably why they’d both hung out with Johnny. But he’d been trying not to think about Barney. Barney being dead – that spooked him.

  If he told Johnny what was happening with his mother, spelled it out so he could make her stop before it all went bad – he was sure Johnny could fix it, get her help or something. She was just really stressed, that was all.

  Dylan reached the showroom and tried the door, but it was locked, and there was no sign of Johnny inside. He frowned. Johnny’d said he was going to open up today, couldn’t stay shut for ever.

  Maybe there hadn’t been any point. All the kids had been yakking on about how their parents weren’t letting them go out on the streets because of the sniper, and there was hardly anyone around. Johnny had probably decided to do stuff in the workshop instead.

  Dylan walked past the front of the building, then turned the corner towards the yard at the back.

  24

  ‘And where the hell have you been?’

  MacNee, finding the eyes of two women fixed on him accusingly, and uncomfortably aware that he hadn’t made much of a fist at getting the mud off his shoes and jeans, contemplated bolting. But that wouldn’t solve anything; he said, ‘Should I maybe go out and come back in again?’

  ‘Don’t bother. Just answer my question.’ Fleming was in no mood to be trifled with.

  ‘Fiona Farquharson has alibis for both murders,’ was his next bid.

  ‘Tansy told me. And Giles has an alibi for one and is most unlikely for the other. And?’

  He shifted uncomfortably. He’d looked a fool in front of one woman this morning already. ‘Well, I had this idea. Didn’t come to anything.’

  ‘You didn’t think to share it with the team? Do you remember what happened last time?’

  MacNee put his hand melodramatically to his head. ‘Not – not clearly. In fact, I’ve sort of been walking round in a dwam, all confused, ever since, or else I’d have told you all about it – whoever you are.’

  With Big Marge in her present frame of mind, it was a high-risk strategy, but to his relief her mouth began to twitch and she burst out laughing. Better still, she allowed herself to be distracted.

  ‘MacNee, you’re a pain in the backside! But look, something’s come up. Tansy brought it in, and we’ve been working around it.’

  For a moment, relief at being off the hook was replaced by a pang of jealousy. ‘Oh yes?’

  ‘She’s been doing a good job, keeping on top of the paperwork. And this morning, we were sent a copy of Andrew Carmichael’s will. There are some minor bequests, but the bulk of the estate goes to Salaman, with fifty thousand and the kids’ school fees to Farquharson—’

  That cheered MacNee up considerably. Fifty thousand might be serious money to him, but he guessed Fiona would be mightily pissed off.

  ‘– and what is really interesting is, twenty thousand to Ellie Burnett.’

  He blinked. ‘Ellie Burnett,’ he said slowly. Then, ‘Did she know?’

  ‘I phoned the solicitor. According to him, Carmichael was the type who’d have thought discussing money was vulgar. In the circumstances, though, if he’d decided to agree the sale with ALCO – and we don’t know that he hadn’t – he might have told her about it to reassure her about the future.’

  MacNee’s whole being revolted at the implication. Beautiful, fragile Ellie, who made him want to shield her from any rough wind, killing first for money and then, with cunning and utter ruthlessness, shooting a boy she disapproved of as a friend for her son? ‘I shouldn’t think she even knows how to fire a gun,’ he said flatly.

  Kerr sprang into the argument. ‘It’s hardly difficult. The upper classes, with barely a brain cell between them, seem to manage it, considering how much wildlife they massacre each year.’

  Fleming was clearly irritated at this outing for Kerr’s recently acquired hobby horse. ‘What’s that about, Tansy? Knock the chip off your shoulder and we can get back to more important things.’

  Kerr went red, and Fleming continued, ‘This all sort of fits, in a way, with what I was wanting to run through with you, Tam. Always supposing you’d been here.’

  She gave him a beady glare. He said hastily, ‘I’m here now. What was it?’

  ‘It starts with the dead sheep.’

  Dylan Burnett opened the gate into the workshop yard. He’d been sure he’d find Johnny here, but the place was empty. He hesitated.

  If Johnny had gone off somewhere, he didn’t want to have to deal with his mother alone. He’d be better off at school. But he didn’t want to go back there either, and the big Suzuki bike and the blue van were both there, so perhaps Johnny’d realised his mother had problems and stayed to look after her.

  He opened the door to the flat and went up the stairs.

  ‘I started looking at what had actually happened, inste
ad of who had a reason for doing what. We’d been snatching at straws – conspiracy theories, blackmail, possible links that showed no signs of actually existing. But I still couldn’t believe it was completely random.’

  Didn’t want to believe, more likely, MacNee thought ­rebelliously. He didn’t like where this latest theory seemed to be heading, but since he’d used up most of his credit this morning, it would be smarter to wait till she’d finished before rubbishing it.

  ‘The dead sheep,’ she said again.

  The woman was getting a bee in her bonnet about the animal. He was tired of thinking about it – the way folks were these days, it was probably just someone’s idea of a sick joke.

  ‘I thought it could have been a sort of graphic illustration of what could happen, if ... And then, Carmichael’s death—’

  With the most perfunctory tap on the door, Sergeant Naismith burst into the room.

  ‘Sorry, ma’am,’ he said breathlessly. ‘I think you’d better come.’

  There had been no sound of voices when Dylan reached the top of the entrance stairs. ‘Johnny?’ he called hopefully, but he didn’t get a reply.

  The door to the sitting-room was ajar, though, and from it came the faint creak-creak of his mother’s rocking-chair. He didn’t really want to see his mother. There could be awkward questions about why he wasn’t at school, for a start – if she still had her head together enough to notice. If she didn’t, well, that would be bad too. On the other hand, she’d have heard him coming in and anyway she might know where Johnny was. He pushed open the door.

  It was as if he’d stepped into a different reality, something from a bad film, maybe, or a too realistic computer game. At the far end of the long room, his mother was sitting, pushing the rocking-chair Johnny had brought from their own flat to and fro, to and fro. Creak-creak, creak-creak – time seemed to stand still.