Munro turned to face West.
‘More to the point, Charlie,’ he said, his forehead furrowed with the deepest of frowns, ‘where’s May?’
‘May? You don’t think…’
‘Let’s face it, she had access to the Astra, knew where to find the ketamine and she’s proved herself to be quite proficient in the ancient art of knife throwing.’
‘Yes, but why?’
‘Revenge? Getting her own back by polishing off every girl he had an affair with?’
West pondered the suggestion as she squatted beside Munro.
‘Okay,’ she said, almost whispering, ‘I’ll buy that, apart from one thing.’
‘What’s that?’
‘Jennifer Clow. I can’t see Don… I mean, I don’t want to speak ill of the dead but look at her. She doesn’t exactly fit the bill, does she?’
‘Maybe not, but as we know, Charlie, looks aren’t everything. Just look at his wife.’
West jumped as a muscular spasm caused Clow’s foot to jerk and bang against the bath panel.
‘Okay, listen carefully,’ said Munro, ‘get back to the car, we need an ambulance and forensics. Tell Armed Response they can stand down and get Dougal to circulate a description of May, we need to pick her up as soon as possible, then call Don, ask him if he knows where she might go if she needed to get away – parents, friends, anyone she might turn to in times of trouble. Oh, and dinnae forget to ask him if he ever had an affair with Miss Clow.’
* * *
Dougal crossed the street to chat with the driver of the 4x4 carrying the armed officers, leaving West, her heart still thumping, in the relative safety of the Peugeot to call Cameron on his mobile.
‘You’re late, Charlie,’ he said, ‘and unless you’re with the fiscal, you’ve some explaining to do. I wouldnae want to be accused of outstaying my welcome.’
‘Shut it, Don, and listen up. This is serious and I haven’t got long.’
‘Och, you know, you sound quite sexy when you’re…’
‘Oi! Listen to me. May. Your wife. Where would she go if she was in trouble?’
‘What?’
‘You heard,’ said West. ‘Has she got any friends nearby? What about her parents?’
‘Has something happened to her? What’s going on?’
‘Just answer the bloody question! Where would she go?’
‘I’m not sure,’ said Cameron, ‘she’s not one for socialising. There’s… there’s a lassie at the school, a teaching assistant who works with her, she could maybe…’
‘Name?’
‘No idea, you’d have to ring the school.’
‘Parents?’
‘Miles away. Not a bad thing. Bucksburn, just outside Aberdeen.’
‘Good. One last thing,’ said West. ‘Jennifer Clow.’
‘What?’
‘Jennifer Clow. Assistant Manageress at the bookshop. Did you have an affair with her?’
West pulled the phone from her ear as Cameron burst out laughing.
‘What’s so funny?’
‘Nothing, nothing. Go on.’
‘I said, did you have an affair with Jennifer Clow!’
‘You have got to be kidding me,’ said Cameron, still sniggering, ‘why would I…?’
‘Just answer the bloody question, Don!’ yelled West, her patience at breaking point, ‘or so help me God, I’ll…’
The pause rattled West.
‘Listen, hen,’ said Cameron, a slight waver to his voice, ‘she’s not my type and I’ve already told you…’
‘Well, you obviously know her, so that’s a start. You’re sounding nervous, Don. Have I hit a nerve?’
Cameron hesitated.
‘She’s my sister-in-law, okay? She’s May’s sister.’
West slumped back in shock and glanced towards the house as Cameron rambled on.
‘I’ll call you back,’ she said before hanging up and bolting back inside.
* * *
Munro stood staring at the corpse – his addled mind awash with conflicting thoughts of Cameron’s culpability and Max’s seemingly innocent involvement in the whole scenario – and sighed despondently as he became increasingly frustrated at his inability to justify the presence of Miss Clow and, more importantly, why anyone would want to kill her.
He wandered from the bathroom, head bowed, and glanced along the landing, his eyes narrowing as they focused on the door to the second bedroom. He took a deep breath, cocked his head to one side and stood stock-still listening for signs of movement before heading warily towards it and gently wrapping his fingers around the brass handle, realising at once that it was locked from the inside.
‘Who’s there?’ he said as he released the knob and stepped back. ‘This is the police. I shall have to ask you to open the door.’
The subsequent silence played havoc with his blood pressure.
‘Police!’ he called again. ‘This is your final warning! Open the door!’
Unwilling to rely on statins for the rest of his life and keen to avoid bypass surgery, Munro braced himself against the opposite wall, raised his right leg and aimed it directly beneath the door knob.
‘Stand clear!’ he yelled, cursing as he kicked it open with all the force he could muster. May Cameron was slumped against the radiator, her hands lacerated and bleeding, her white tee-shirt soaked with blood. She looked up and did her best to smile.
‘At last,’ she whispered, ‘the cavalry, I assume?’
‘May! What on Earth’s happened?’ said Munro, as he dived forward, fumbling for his phone.
‘I grabbed the knife, silly I know, but it worked.’
‘Who...? Was this Miss Clow? Did she…?’
‘Aye,’ said May, her eyelids fluttering, ‘she tried to…’
‘Dinnae pass out on me lassie, keep talking,’ said Munro, as he tried to call West. ‘How’re you feeling? Open your eyes, look at me!’
‘I’m okay, I think,’ said May. ‘Pissed off about the tee-shirt, it’s brand new. And red never was my colour.’
Munro pulled the duvet from the bed and wrapped it around her shoulders as West came running through the door.
‘Holy shit!’ she said, panting. ‘What the hell…?’
‘Charlie! Paramedics, ambulance, now!’
West looked up at the window as the sound of sirens echoed down the street.
‘Here’s one I ordered earlier,’ she said as she knelt beside May and held a hand in front of her face.
‘How many fingers can you count, May?’
‘Four.’
‘Close enough. How about now?’
‘Four.’
‘Shit. Listen, you’ll be okay, help’s on the way,’ she said, sighing with relief as the paramedics came thumping up the stairs.
* * *
Munro, hands clasped behind his back, watched from the window as the medics lifted May into the back of the ambulance.
‘Well, that’s torn it,’ said West, standing in the doorway, ‘two more bodies and whoever did it got clean away. Desk duty here I come.’
‘Sorry, Charlie,’ said Munro, distracted by the mayhem on the street below, ‘what was that?’
‘Nothing important. So, come on, Poirot, any ideas? Who do we look for now?’
‘We’re not looking for anyone, lassie. That’s it.’
‘What? That’s it?’ said West, surprised by his defeatist attitude. ‘Oh come on, you can’t give up just like that, what’s got into you?’
‘Nothing,’ said Munro, wincing as he turned to face her. ‘It was self-defence.’
‘Self-defence?’
‘Aye, May said as much. That’s why she locked herself in here.’
‘Ah, makes sense, I suppose. What’s up with you?’ said West.
‘I think I’ve broken my foot. What do you mean, “makes sense”?’
West plonked herself on the edge of the bed and smiled smugly at Munro.
‘Bet you’re wondering what Clow was doing
here in the first place?’ she said.
‘It had crossed my mind but no doubt May will be able to shed some light on that particular conundrum once she’s out of danger.’
‘True. Have you, er, have you ever wondered how Don met his wife? May?’
‘It’s not a question that’s kept me up at night. What’s with the cryptics, Charlie? Will you not get to the point?’
‘Brace yourself,’ said West, grinning, ‘you won’t believe this.’
Munro regarded her with a curious tilt of the head and couldn’t help but smile.
‘Go on,’ he said, ‘let’s have it.’
‘Jennifer Clow. She’s May’s sister.’
‘Are you joking me?’ said Munro, the smile vanishing from his face.
‘And that’s not all. She and Don used to… you know.’
‘Are you sure? But… I mean, how on earth does a rough diamond like Don end up with Miss Prim and Proper?’
‘Hear me out,’ said West. ‘Don was knocking off Jean Armour, right? Well, apparently Jean gave him the big heave-ho after just a couple of weeks and reading between the lines, Don, being the alpha-male he is, couldn’t handle the rejection. He says he tried to make things up with her but my guess is it was probably more like harassment.’
‘Let’s the leave the supposition for now, Charlie, stick with the facts.’
‘Okay. Clow noticed him hanging round the shop towards the end of Jean’s shifts and made a beeline for him, “coffee and a shoulder” kind of thing. Caught him on the rebound.’
‘Sounds more like entrapment,’ said Munro. ‘Even so, I still cannae see the likes of Don stepping out with Jennifer Clow.’
‘They didn’t,’ said West, ‘not according to Don. He says their relationship was purely platonic and their friendship simply gave him an excuse to go back to the bookshop and harass Jean. Clow, on the other hand, assumed they were an item.’
‘Och, the poor woman. So, Don was leading her on?’
‘Yup, seems so. Anyway, soon came a point when she introduced him to May. Turned out to be the biggest mistake of her life.’
‘Hold on, just a wee moment, Charlie. Hold on,’ said Munro, as he paced the room, scratching the back of his head. ‘Where exactly are you getting all this?’
‘Straight from the horse’s mouth,’ said West. ‘When I spoke to Don, just now.’
Munro stopped pacing and sat next to West.
‘Incredible,’ he said as he leaned forward and cradled his head in his hands, ‘incredible. Okay, go on.’
‘Not much more to tell. Soon as Don clapped eyes on May, that was it, game over. Despite the fact that Clow was besotted with him, I mean, completely infatuated, she stepped aside, for the sake of her sister.’
Munro glanced at West and shook his head.
‘The man’s not fit to carry a badge,’ he said. ‘He’s a snake. Aye, that’s the word. A snake. I mean, just how shallow, how fickle, can one man be?’
‘That’s what I’m supposed to say.’
Munro stood and went to the window. Aside from Dougal sitting on his scooter and the blue and white tape flapping in the breeze, a semblance of normality had returned to the street.
‘Okay, so let’s think about the motive,’ he said. ‘There’s Jennifer Clow, content to sit on the side-lines and watch her sister play happy families with the man she loves, until what? What changed? What made her see red?’
‘You mean green,’ said West. ‘The green-eyed monster.’
‘Jealousy? You think this was about revenge? A woman scorned?’
‘Scorned. Unrequited love. All boils down to the same thing. I reckon, despite what she felt for Don, she was simply protecting her sister. I don’t think she could tolerate seeing the way Don was treating her, with all the affairs and that, let alone the baby.’
‘Aye, right enough.’
‘So what I’m trying to say is, bizarrely, she was doing it for May. Let’s face it, there’s no way she was going to kill Don, she still loved him. But there was nothing to stop her denying anyone else the pleasure.’
‘I’m not sure pleasure’s the right word,’ said Munro, his attention drawn to the shelves built into the alcove. ‘She enjoys reading more than her sister, no arty picture books, mostly literature by the looks of it.’
‘I’d go for the picture books every time,’ said West, ‘less taxing and no big words to skip over.’
‘And looky here, The Complete Works of Robert Burns, same edition as the others.’
‘Wonder if she got a discount for bulk. What’s that one?’ said West, pointing to a thick tome on the upper shelf, ‘the one with the purple spine decorated with glitter and stars and stuff?’
Munro reached up and pulled it down.
‘It’s a photo album,’ he said, opening the cover, ‘and I think we’d best take it with us.’
Chapter 20
George Elliot was, on the whole, happy to go with the flow, content to let those who served under him get on with their job unhindered by diktats from above, an approach which delivered results and, generally speaking, negated the need to reprimand officers for unacceptable behaviour. It was a philosophy he applied with equal success to his home life, although without the need for disciplinary action, having learned early on in his – for the most part – “love-struck” union, that his size was no match for the wrath of a Belfast lass.
He sauntered aimlessly around the empty office, cringed at the weather forecast on Dougal’s laptop, rummaged guiltily through the evidence bags as if they were stuffed with Christmas presents and bemoaned the lack of anything edible in the fridge. Lining up five mugs on the worktop, he dropped a teabag into each followed by a splash of milk, filled the kettle and checked his watch, wondering just how long he’d have to wait for somebody, anybody, to return.
West, ranting about blood sugar levels and the imminent possibility of a blackout brought about by a lack of sustenance, curbed her tongue as she and Munro bumbled through the door.
‘George!’ said Munro, taken aback. ‘What’s all this? I thought you and Mrs. Elliot were sunning yourselves on some far-flung beach?’
‘Aye,’ said Elliot, smiling broadly, his face a subtle shade of pink, ‘we were. That is to say, we did, for a few hours at least, anyway.’
‘So what brought you back so soon? I do hope your lady wife’s not been taken ill?’
‘No, no, nothing like that, James. Unfortunately, I’m afraid Mrs. Elliot doesnae take kindly to surprises. She decided that the sun was too hot. The sea was too cold. The food was too greasy and nobody spoke English in way that she could understand, so we came home.’
‘That is a shame,’ said West, ‘after all the effort you went to.’
‘Aye, right enough, but as they say, you cannae please all of the people, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. Still, I said I’d make it up to her.’
‘Most magnanimous of you, George,’ said Munro, grinning, ‘what do you have in mind?’
‘Two weeks in Fair Isle or a cruise to Iceland. That way if she turns frosty, at least I’ll not notice. So, come on, tea’s on the brew, bring me up to speed.’
‘How long have you got?’ said West, looking at her watch.
‘All the time in the world, Charlie. Sorry, am I holding you up? Is there somewhere you have to be?’
‘Oh God, no,’ said West, ‘it’s just that my tummy’s expecting a visitor and he gets incredibly irate if he’s stood up.’
‘Perfect timing,’ said Munro as Dougal breezed through the door, ‘would you nip to the café, laddie, in all the excitement it appears we’ve forgotten to eat.’
‘Nae bother, sir. Back in a jiff.’
Elliot set the mugs on the table and sat down.
‘Five mugs,’ he said, frowning, ‘four of us. Where’s Don? Following up a lead, I imagine?’
‘Not quite,’ said Munro, as he flung his coat over a chair, ‘he’s downstairs.’
‘I see. Interrogating a suspect, no doubt?’<
br />
‘Not unless he’s a mirror to hand. He’s waiting to be charged.’
‘Oh?’
Munro sat down, locked his fingers together and stretched his arms.
‘Okay, George,’ he said, ‘are you ready for this? See now, Don wasnae stabbed by some nutter in an off-licence as he claimed, he was stabbed by his wife who’d grown sick and tired of his indiscretions. He was also suffering from depression and got himself hooked on ketamine, which he obtained illegally, in the belief that it would help.’
‘I’ve a sudden urge to book another flight,’ said Elliot.
‘Agnes Craig and Mary Campbell were both drugged with ketamine before they were killed,’ said West, ‘which made Don our number one suspect, not least because he’d also had affairs with the both of them.’
‘Hold on,’ said Elliot, frowning as he raised his hand. ‘Who’s Mary Campbell?’
‘Ah, of course, you don’t know. I’m afraid to say, sir, that Agnes Craig was just the tip of the iceberg. The body count’s escalated somewhat since you’ve been away.’
‘Australia,’ said Elliot with a sigh. ‘Right now, I’m thinking Australia.’
‘For the record, Don also had affairs with at least two other women, both of whom worked in the bookshop on the high street: Jean Armour and Jennifer Clow.’
‘Good grief.’
‘And just for good measure,’ said Munro, sipping his tea, ‘he’s a wean by somebody other than his wife. A young lass by the name of Elizabeth Paton.’
Elliot, dumbfounded, stared at West in disbelief.
‘Are you sure it was ketamine he was taking and not an aphrodisiac?’ he said as Dougal returned and placed a large, brown carrier bag in the middle of the desk.
‘All white,’ he said, ‘all sausage, all brown sauce.’
‘Thanks Dougal, you’re a gent,’ said Munro, ‘tell me, George, are you fond of magic tricks?’
‘Magic? No, not particularly.’
‘Then grab a sandwich quick or Charlie here will make them disappear faster than a ferret down a rabbit hole.’
‘Bloody cheek,’ said West, helping herself, ‘incidentally, sir, Don has agreed to a psychiatric assessment because of his condition. It may have a bearing on the outcome of the charge.’
ENMITY: An enthralling Scottish murder mystery (Detective Inspector Munro murder mysteries Book 3) Page 16