Human Face

by Aline Templeton

  ‘Actually, I came in to ask you for a favour. Harry’s going to be staying for a few more days – he’s got problems with his own business so he’s working on them up here where he can get some peace. He’s not the easiest of guests and my poor Beatrice is falling apart with the stress of getting everything served up. Oh, I know you leave everything ready but she gets flustered and upset and we don’t want that. Would you extend your duties to coming across and doing the evening meal, the way you do when there’s a house party? Same rate, of course – and you could sleep in Eva’s room if Murdo John drew the line at another trip to and fro.’

  There was something in the way he looked at her, something in the way his eyes flicked from her face down to the V of her open-necked shirt that made her flesh crawl. She recoiled from the thought of sleeping under the same roof as this man, but Murdo John certainly wouldn’t agree to ferrying her on an extra trip. He wouldn’t want her to go at all. But she wasn’t in a charitable mood at the moment where her husband was concerned.

  ‘Yes, I can do that,’ she said, as calmly as if there wasn’t a voice inside her screaming, No! Don’t! Don’t! ‘But there was something I wanted to ask you. The inspector was asking me about another girl who’d been housekeeper here – Veruschka, was it?’

  ‘My dear girl, I can’t imagine what all that was about.’ There was a smile on Adam’s face but it was more like a rictus. ‘Veruschka was just a girl who worked here years ago then got tired of it, just the way Eva did. I can understand; it’s very remote for a young person.’

  ‘And did she just disappear too?’

  The smile, such as it was, vanished. ‘No,’ he said curtly. ‘She told me she was leaving – going to London, she said, if I remember rightly, and then she left. And before you ask me, no, after all that time I don’t remember exactly what her travel arrangements were – Marek taking her across to catch the bus? Maybe, or perhaps she got a taxi. Oh, and I seem to remember we were having some building work done on one of the outbuildings around that time – she was always moaning about the dust, anyway. So maybe a workman gave her a lift – Murdo John was certainly one of them. Why don’t you ask him? Anyway, I have other things to do. Are you prepared to do the suppers or not? Because—’

  ‘Yes, of course, Adam,’ she said, but she had gone back to chopping her carrots with particular venom before he left the room. She had been angry before but now she was burning with fury. Murdo John knew this had happened before with another girl but he hadn’t told her, even though he knew how worried she was about Eva.

  Things weren’t right between them at the moment and this could just be the night when things went badly, badly wrong.

  Daniel Tennant had the front door of his rented cottage open before Strang and Murray were halfway up the short path. He looked pale and tense and the two-day stubble on his cheeks looked like negligence rather than design.

  ‘You’ve taken your time,’ he said irritably. ‘I tried to catch you at the police station in Broadford this morning but the woman on the desk wouldn’t try to find you because I didn’t know your name.’

  It wasn’t often you found a witness as keen as this. Strang raised his eyebrows as he took out his warrant card and introduced himself.

  ‘Strang,’ Tennant read. His eyes slid over the woman officer. ‘Right. You’d better come in.’

  The front door opened into a living room which ran right across the front of the house, with a kitchen area at one end and a fireplace at the other. The furnishings were functional rather than elegant – solid foam sofas and chairs upholstered in primary colours – and it was clear that this was a holiday let, but it was comfortable enough and there were papers piled up on a table in front of one of the small windows and books and personal clutter spread around on the coffee table by the fire. It wasn’t lit, and with the dead ashes in the grate the place felt cheerless.

  It was only when Strang and Murray were going to sit down that Tennant seemed to focus on Murray. He pointed. ‘Not her,’ he said.

  Strang stared at him. ‘PC Murray is here to take notes for me. There’s no reason—’

  ‘Yes, there is,’ Tennant said. ‘I need to speak to you alone.’

  ‘Perhaps if you were to tell me what this is about—’

  The man’s face twitched as he sat down on the incongruously cheerful bright red sofa and folded his arms. ‘I’m not saying a word until she goes.’

  Strang felt his hackles rise. ‘I understood you wanted to talk to me urgently. It seems curious that now I’m here you’re making conditions.’

  Tennant didn’t move, only closing his lips more tightly together.

  Murray was standing her ground, looking ready for a fight, but Strang was always inclined to play the percentages and he could lose this one.

  ‘If you don’t mind, Murray,’ he said, and though she pursed her lips and glared at Tennant she said, ‘Sir,’ and left. He heard her slam the car door unnecessarily hard. Strang took his seat on the bright blue sofa opposite. ‘This had better be good. What was your problem with my constable?’

  ‘For a start, she interviewed me before and she didn’t take me seriously.’

  ‘I have reviewed her report and she proceeded perfectly properly, sir. PC Murray found no sign that there had been anything untoward about Ms Havel leaving, apart from the fact that you had expected her to call on you to bring her across from Balnasheil Lodge, but she was alone there after everyone else had left and had every opportunity to do so if she had wanted to. I have found nothing to suggest that this is wrong, though we are pursuing our investigation to try to establish who might have helped her to leave, since you didn’t.’

  ‘You won’t find anyone,’ he said wildly. ‘She didn’t leave. He’s killed her – don’t you understand?’

  He could play dumb but there wasn’t much point. ‘If you mean Mr Carnegie, he was in Paris at the time.’

  ‘Was he? Can he prove it?’

  ‘I expect he can. We will be checking up. But why would he want to kill her? They were apparently on perfectly good terms—’

  Tennant groaned, leaning forward and putting his head in his hands. ‘I’m guilty, you see. I should never have done it.’

  This was getting more and more confusing. Was the man unbalanced, accusing Carnegie of murder one minute and then confessing to it the next?

  ‘Mr Tennant,’ he said gently, ‘you seem upset. Did you do something to Eva?’

  ‘Oh yes. Oh yes, I did something, something that’s led her to a shallow grave somewhere on the moors over there.’

  Strang felt a chill go down his spine. ‘What do you mean?’

  Tennant flung himself back in his chair. ‘Did you not pause to wonder why you’ve been sent up here to investigate a woman who had packed her own bags and gone without there being – what did you call it, “anything untoward” about it?’

  ‘Yes,’ Strang said slowly. ‘Yes, I did.’

  ‘She was a spy,’ he said harshly. ‘I persuaded her to do it. She didn’t want to, but I promised her the sort of life she’d always wanted, wherever she wanted to be, if she got details of what Carnegie and Drummond are up to – money laundering on a grand scale, we think. I’m with a fraud department in the Met, and I’ve managed to get her killed. She was a lovely, gentle, decent kid and she trusted me.’

  He put his hands over his face and gave a groan that was almost a sob.

  CHAPTER NINE

  It was a long time before DI Strang reappeared. PC Murray longed to say, ‘Well?’ when he got back into the car, but taking a glance at the grim line of his mouth she thought better of it.

  She was expecting him to drive back through the village to the hotel but he said, ‘Where is the local station? Want a lift back?’

  ‘Thanks, sir. It’s not very far, but since it’s raining …’ she said and directed him up the hill. Maybe he might tell her something on the way.

  When he pulled up, still silent, she decided to take a chance. If you don’t
ask, you don’t get. ‘What was Mr Tennant after, wanting me not there when he spoke to you, sir? Has he a problem with me?’

  He glanced at her almost as if he was surprised to find her sitting there. ‘Oh, sorry, Murray. I was just thinking. No, it’s nothing personal. But I have to say there are certainly grounds for concern now. Write up the report from the interviews this morning and file it for me, would you, please? Thanks for your help.’

  And that was it, was it? As she let herself back into the police station, its damp, stuffy atmosphere felt like a physical manifestation of the gloom that was sweeping over her. She’d never considered CID when she was in Glasgow and with the blot on her record it wouldn’t have been a realistic proposition anyway, but now she was hooked. There was something, well, almost romantic about it – a challenge, a battle of wits against the forces of darkness.

  Livvy was suffering from a severe case of wounded pride. When she’d known the DI was coming, she’d worked over her report on her original investigation to make sure there was nothing he could find fault with and he’d poked so many holes in it today that it looked like a lace curtain.

  She’d let herself down and she’d let that girl down too. Something had happened to her, she was sure of it, and she’d put money on Strang being sure of it too. Adam Carnegie gave her the grue; she’d been on court duty once when a serial killer was in the dock and he’d eyes just like that. But she was out of it now and she wouldn’t even know what Strang was planning. It was like being allowed to watch the first half-hour of Psycho and then being taken out of the cinema because it was past her bedtime.

  Strang was good, though she hated to admit it. It had been an education, watching him persuade the Lacey woman to open up – she’d been closed as a clam when Livvy had been the one asking her questions. In fact, when she looked back at them now, they seemed perfunctory, almost offhand.

  She knew why too, now. Her big sin had been making up her mind about what had happened with Eva, because that was the normal thing – the woman would turn up a couple of weeks later, furious about the fuss – and hadn’t even tried to look for confirmatory evidence. She wouldn’t do that again.

  But of course, she wouldn’t have the chance to put what she’d learnt into practice. She’d been dismissed, while her brain was still fizzing with ideas. Now here she was, back to the boring little office where the highlights of her day were queries about household security and lost cats.

  The rain had stopped and little patches of tender blue sky were appearing as the clouds parted and the scenery, so grey before, suddenly burst into colour: all hazy blues and greens and the occasional little patch of flaring orange and red from such leaves as still clung on in a brave show of autumn colour before the next gale stripped the trees completely bare. Above, the looming bulk of the Black Cuillin was visible only as a shadow in the hanging cloud.

  Vicky Macdonald glanced up at The Presence, as she sometimes thought of it. Today it seemed a manifestation of the cloud hanging over them as Murdo John brought her back across the bay after she’d finished her work. She didn’t speak; that was unlike her, and she saw him look at her uneasily once or twice – as well he might. She didn’t want to have the tearing row she was planning until they were within the privacy of their own home, but she went on the attack the moment they were in the cottage with the door shut. Murdo John was just hanging up his oilskin jacket when she said, knowing what his reaction would be, ‘I’ll have to go across again in the late afternoon. Adam needs me to do suppers while Harry’s there.’

  Murdo John swung round, his face dark with anger. ‘That finishes it. You can just give in your notice. You’re not his slave.’

  ‘No, Murdo. But I’m not yours, either. I’m an independent woman and I decide what I’m going to do. He’s my employer and it’s a good job.’

  ‘We don’t need the money that much. I don’t want you having anything to do with them. I didn’t want you to take the job in the first place.’

  ‘And why is that?’ Vicky asked silkily. ‘Is it because things have happened there, things you haven’t told me about before?’

  Murdo John went very still. Then he said, ‘Like …?’

  ‘Like Veruschka.’

  She saw the tension in his shoulders. ‘What about her?’

  ‘She disappeared, didn’t she?’ As he opened his mouth to speak she spoke across him. ‘And don’t try to deny it. The police told me. Daniel doesn’t know; Adam wasn’t going to volunteer that and neither was Beatrice. So where did they get it from, I wonder? Did they have a chat with you this morning before they came across to the Lodge?’

  ‘I told them there was gossip, that’s all.’ There was a line of white round his lips; he was furiously angry. ‘And I told them that the woman who started it was an attention-seeker who made a drama out of everything. She was just another of Adam’s girls who left, that’s all.’

  ‘To go where?’

  ‘How do I know? Look—’

  ‘What was she like, this Veruschka who didn’t disappear?’

  ‘I don’t remember.’

  ‘Tall, short, dark, fair?’

  ‘Oh – dark, I think. Brown eyes. I told you I don’t really remember. It was years ago.’

  ‘Do you remember Eva? She only disappeared a few days ago but I expect very shortly you’ll have forgotten her as well.’ Vicky paused and then said, less aggressively, ‘Look, Murdo, I’m really worried about Eva and if there’s another of Adam’s housekeepers who has a question mark about her leaving, it makes me more worried still. Please, why didn’t you want to tell me about this?’

  Her softened voice had no effect. ‘Because I didn’t sodding well think the last girl “disappeared” and I don’t think Eva did either. I think you and Tennant have created a storm in a teacup and there’s going to be trouble. I don’t want you mixed up in it and you can just give up that job right now.’

  Vicky put her hands up to her hot cheeks. ‘Is that an order?’

  ‘If I take you across, you can stay there.’ He folded his arms, standing with his legs apart. With his size and bulk, in that small room, it was an intimidating posture.

  Something in her died at that moment. She stared at him, then said quietly, ‘Fine. I’ll go and pack.’

  When she had reached the bedroom she flung herself onto the bed and sobbed, pulling a pillow over her head so he wouldn’t hear the sound.

  Strang drove back to the hotel, his mind in a ferment. It was coming home to him, with some force, how different this job was going to be. In Edinburgh he had been a member of a team and to get any idea actioned, he had to argue his case. It was a luxury to have full control; he had only to decide and he could put it into practice. And what Tennant had said made it easy; he would be pulling all the stops out.

  Tennant had seemed almost distraught. Strang had tried to establish if he’d been sleeping with the missing girl and he’d denied it, but then he would, wouldn’t he? There had been a case recently when an undercover officer had developed a relationship with one of the group he had infiltrated and it hadn’t gone well. Strang had let that go, only asking if he was in love with her anyway, but Tennant had denied that too.

  ‘This isn’t some romantic agony because she ditched me,’ he’d said angrily. ‘This is guilt, man! She’d still be alive if I hadn’t made use of her.’

  Strang wasn’t at all sure that he believed him – his reaction suggested there was both, perhaps – but he didn’t doubt that if the Met was involved they would have good grounds for investigating Carnegie. And if Eva Havel had indeed been caught spying on her boss, it gave him a very solid reason for getting rid of her.

  It was easy enough to check the man’s claim that he’d been in Paris – a phone call to HQ would set that in motion. But what if he hadn’t needed to be there in person? What if the only person left at Balnasheil Lodge with Eva Havel that day, Marek Kaczka in the cottage by the gate, had been deputed to carry out an instruction from his boss?

&
nbsp; He parked the car and, still deep in thought, went into the hotel. Fiona Ross, as ill luck would have it, was busy at the reception desk and her face brightened when she saw him.

  ‘Hello, Inspector. Have you had a successful morning?’

  He nodded an acknowledgement and walked on but she came round from behind the reception desk and followed him.

  ‘You’re a bit late for lunch, I’m afraid, but I can bring you up some sandwiches, if you like. I expect you’re quite hungry, after doing all those interviews.’

  How the hell did she know? Did the woman have spies everywhere? Yes, was probably the answer, because everyone in the place was watching what he was doing and talking about it. The Black Cuillin bar had probably done good business this morning. He realised that he’d better eat something, and with her intelligence network she might even be useful.

  ‘Thank you, Mrs Ross. Ham, if you have it? One round.’

  ‘Of course. Won’t be long.’ She bustled off and Strang climbed the stairs, his mind still buzzing.

  He would reinterview Kaczka, of course, but he had little hope that he would get any more out of him next time. He could check his immigration status in the hope that there might be some sort of lever there but all the case was adding up to so far was unsubstantiated allegations, and he wouldn’t be popular with JB if he mounted an expensive operation – and attracted press attention too – only to fall flat on his face.

  He mustn’t allow himself to fall into the trap of prejudging the situation. It was still logically possible that Eva had left of her own accord. Perhaps she’d decided it wasn’t smart to spy on Carnegie and wanted to escape the pressure that Tennant was probably putting on her. He’d need checks done on the local taxis, buses, boats, even; he could see if anyone had a photo of the girl so they could flash it around. He was jotting that down when a knock on the door heralded Fiona and the sandwiches. She beamed at him.