Human Face

by Aline Templeton

  Karen had met Beatrice once; she was quite like her brother, in fact, and though you wouldn’t call Quentin good-looking, features like theirs definitely looked better on a man – and she could give him a stone or two as well. ‘No,’ she admitted. ‘And Adam Thing is quite buff, you said?’

  ‘Slimy charm personified. She’s mesmerised by him, lost all powers of reason. She’s handing over every penny she can to a charity that’s just the Bank of Carnegie. Like to have a look at its books, I tell you.’

  ‘You’re not likely to get that anyway. Oh, give it a rest!’ She stood up. ‘Time I went to open up the shop. Come in at ten to take over, will you? I’ve got a hair appointment.’

  ‘I suppose so,’ he said gloomily.

  ‘Right. You could do some hoovering, if you like – take your mind off your sister.’

  He flared up. ‘It’s all very well for you to say that. But what happens if he marries her? How long do you think it would be before she had a nasty accident, or a sudden heart attack, or something? I wouldn’t put anything past him.’

  Karen stopped at that. ‘Are you serious?’

  ‘Yes, I’m serious. I don’t suppose I can actually forbid the banns but I’m not going to let him just get away with it.’

  ‘Doesn’t sound as if she’s going to listen to reason, and you haven’t enough money to buy him off so I don’t see that you can do anything. Anyway, I’ve got to go. See you at ten.’

  She left Quentin to stare at his empty coffee mug, as if the answer to his problems lay there in the dregs.

  PC Murray went to her desk in no very positive frame of mind and booted up her computer. To her surprise, there was a message from DI Strang asking her to be available this morning.

  Result! She’d been sure she’d blown it with him, but maybe she’d done enough to let him see what an asset she could be. She pinged back her assurance that she was ready when he was and prepared to be patient.

  In fact, it was only a quarter of an hour later that she saw his car pulling up in the car park outside, and she prepared a bright, cooperative smile to greet him. Then Daniel Tennant got out behind him and her smile faded a little. It disappeared entirely when she discovered that he was a DC with the Met. They didn’t explain why a DC from London should have been up here writing a book.

  So he’d presumably only been ‘writing a book’, and if he was undercover it wasn’t hard to work out who he had in his sights – and if he was this agitated about Eva having stood him up, she’d likely been involved in that too. If something had happened to her as a result of that …

  Tennant’s manner was frosty and she could guess why: he was blaming her because she hadn’t taken his word for it at the time that there was a reason to worry about Eva. But he hadn’t been exactly straight with her either, and even supposing she’d pulled out all the stops they wouldn’t be any further on than they were now. She gave him a narrow-eyed look as payback.

  She was royally pissed off when she realised that he’d be the one going poncing off on interviews with Strang while she shovelled coal back here at the pit, but she was wise enough not to show it. At least she was in on the discussion meantime.

  Strang had managed to establish that Carnegie had indeed been in Paris as he had claimed but there was no further information about Eva Havel, and the likelihood was that it wasn’t even her real name.

  He was wanting now to find out more about the exotic-sounding Veruschka, whoever she might be.

  ‘I thought perhaps you could spend some time in the pub this evening,’ Strang said to her. ‘Just chatting to people, you know …’

  ‘Oh, I’m sure she’ll be up for that,’ Tennant said nastily.

  Murray was opening her mouth, ready to give as good as she got, but then catching the look of distaste that Strang shot at Tennant, shut it again hastily. If it would pay her to be dignified, she could be dignified.

  ‘No problem, sir,’ she said and made notes as he detailed the enquiries he wanted made to establish whether there had been any sightings of Eva after the time Vicky Macdonald had left the Lodge.

  It was frustrating to be left here while they went off to do the interesting stuff, but she’d plenty to keep her busy. She’d do the most meticulous search that had ever been done in the history of Scottish policing; if she could find just one person who could say they’d seen Eva leaving, it would prove she’d been right about this just being a case of a woman who’d changed her mind.

  The thing was, though, she didn’t now believe that she would.

  Beatrice was still feeling groggy this morning. She hadn’t gone down to supper, just gone to bed and taken a sleeping pill, but even though she’d made herself a hearty breakfast and drunk three cups of black coffee, her head seemed to be stuffed with cotton wool.

  It was a sunny morning but very cold, with the icy wind whipping in from the sea finding the gaps in the window frames with a low, whistling sound. Adam was walking on the moor with Amber, and Beatrice watched them nervously. She really thought that if he came in this morning to show off another bleeding hare the beastly animal had caught, she wouldn’t be able to stop herself screaming.

  Mercifully, he walked back empty-handed. He did come in, but only to tell her that he had business in Glasgow and would be away all day.

  ‘Yes, Adam,’ she said obediently. ‘When do you want to go? Do you need me to tell Marek to drive the car round to the other side and bring the boat back for you?’

  ‘No, it’s all right, I saw him and he did that earlier. I’ll leave once I’ve grabbed a cup of coffee and a piece of toast. Have a good day, sweetie!’

  A good day! Had he forgotten that the police were going to come and interrogate them again? Or had he remembered all too well, and that was why he’d suddenly had business in Glasgow?

  He was leaving her to hold the fort. It was because he relied on her, she told herself fiercely. She had to be his rock, totally loyal when people like Harry and the wretched Eva had caused trouble for him. He’d told her what she needed to do when they asked their prying questions and she had to do it, for his sake. Then all this would be over and the future he had talked of, with just the two of them together, would be her dream come true.

  She had to believe that, had to believe in him. If she didn’t, all the sacrifices she’d made – not least the sacrifice of a quiet conscience – had been for nothing and hers would be a worthless life.

  Marek Kaczka quite clearly distrusted the police. Perhaps he’d had reason to in some previous existence but it didn’t make him any easier to deal with now.

  When DC Tennant showed his warrant card, surprise showed on the man’s face and then it darkened, but he said nothing.

  ‘We’ve met before, of course,’ Tennant said. ‘I’ve seen you in the bar sometimes and I came to your door as well to ask if you knew anything about Eva Havel leaving that day, you remember.’

  Kaczka only stared.

  ‘Do you?’ DI Strang said.

  ‘No.’

  ‘You didn’t speak to her, didn’t see her?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Didn’t do something to her, that Adam Carnegie told you to do?’ Tennant said brutally. ‘Because you see, we think you did. Knock her on the head and drop her over the side of the boat, maybe?’

  ‘No! No! I do nothing!’

  At last a response. The man’s head was lowered and he was swinging it from side to side, looking from one to the other like a baited bull.

  ‘I think we’d better go in and talk about this,’ Strang said, and they trooped in behind Kaczka to the squalid little room. The air smelt frowsty and there was something on the worn carpet that stuck to his feet as he walked.

  Tennant leapt in. ‘Let’s see your papers. Come on.’

  He’d made it sound uncomfortably like the sort of thing the Gestapo said in a bad Second World War film. Strang gave Tennant a sharp, warning glance and added, ‘It’s nothing to worry about, sir – just your National Insurance, passport, anyt
hing like that.’

  ‘No paper. Mr Carnegie – he have papers.’

  ‘You claim you’re Polish.’ Tennant was unabashed. ‘Are you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Tennant said, ‘Maybe we’ll get a Polish interpreter. Would you like that?’

  ‘No! No! I speak English.’ The man looked alarmed, frightened, even.

  ‘Oh, really?’ Tennant said with heavy emphasis. ‘Maybe you’d prefer Ukrainian or Albanian, say?’

  Getting no reply, he went on, ‘Still not know anything about Eva?’

  Kaczka stared back woodenly. ‘No.’

  Strang had had enough. He didn’t like crude bullying and it wasn’t working either. As Tennant opened his mouth to speak he cut in, ‘Look, if you did nothing you’re not in any trouble. We won’t tell your boss what you tell us, and it could be very important.’ Again he saw the flicker in the man’s eyes that he had noticed before and he said encouragingly, ‘I’m going to ask you again if you saw Eva, and think carefully about your answer.’

  ‘Oh, very carefully.’ Tennant’s voice was heavy with threat. ‘Very carefully indeed.’

  Kaczka’s face went blank and he shrugged. ‘No.’

  Seething that the moment had been spoilt, Strang said, ‘Thank you for your time, sir,’ and nodded curtly to Tennant. ‘That’s all, Constable.’

  He walked out ahead, trying to contain his anger. Tennant caught up with him, looking quizzical.

  ‘Something on your mind, Strang?’

  Strang stopped. ‘That was bullying. It was unpleasant and counterproductive, and it concerns me that you paid no attention when I indicated that you should stop.’

  Tennant smiled. ‘Well – I’d started so I thought I’d finish. Something fishy about his status, obviously, and if you press that button it’s surprising what you get.’

  ‘Nothing, as it happened,’ Strang pointed out, tight-lipped. ‘And you undermined any chance I might have had of persuading him to talk. Look, Tennant, I have no brief to investigate the man’s immigration status at the moment and I’m conducting this operation my way. Is that clear?’

  ‘For God’s sake!’ Tennant cried. ‘Have you any idea what this case is about? You’re talking about tiptoeing round in dancing pumps while they’re laundering millions—’

  ‘No,’ Strang said. ‘That’s not what this case is about. This is about a young woman called Eva Havel. Anything else is subordinate to that.’

  Tennant glared at him. ‘You don’t have to tell me that. I got you called in, remember? I’m gutted about Eva. But my bosses expect you to fall in line with the operation I’ve established here—’

  ‘Sorry – hold it right there. Your bosses’ wishes are irrelevant until they have agreed them with my boss and she has issued her orders to me. Until then, your operation and mine are entirely separate. So, no bullying and no threats when we do the interviews up at the house. I warn you, if you start I shall pull you up publicly. Is that clear, Tennant?’

  Tennant’s face was dark. ‘Sir,’ he muttered sullenly.

  Strang walked on without waiting for him. He didn’t enjoy pulling rank but he wasn’t about to compromise his own standards of policing. If Tennant wasn’t prepared to do things his way, he’d take Murray with him next time. He preferred stroppy to nasty.

  When the phone rang, Beatrice was reading through an application for funds and she was sufficiently absorbed to have forgotten her own anxieties. It was something she always enjoyed doing, assessing whether there was genuine need or whether this was one of the many chancers who besiege any charity. With her experience she was good at weeding them out, but this one seemed genuine enough: a bush hospital, servicing a ridiculously large area of Ethiopia with very few resources.

  There were pictures of mothers and babies whose lives had been saved and she smiled as she lingered over those, cheered that here was somewhere they could make a difference to the dreadful childbirth mortality statistics they quoted. She was scribbling a recommendation for Adam to consider when the phone rang.

  ‘Beatrice?’

  The sound of Quentin’s voice wiped the smile off her face. ‘What do you want?’

  ‘I don’t want to talk to you,’ he said. ‘Is Adam in?’

  ‘Why do you want to speak to him?’

  ‘None of your business. Just put me through, will you?’

  ‘No, I won’t. Anyway, he’s in Glasgow for the day.’

  ‘OK, I’ll come out to see him later. You can’t stop me.’

  She felt positively ill at the thought of Quentin coming to see Adam, telling him she’d said they were getting married, demanding to know his intentions. What would Adam think? It might ruin all her dreams, just when he’d been talking as if the day might be getting closer.

  ‘Look, Quentin,’ she said awkwardly, ‘I don’t really want to fall out with you. I’m not going to get married the day after tomorrow. There’s no need to drag Adam into it at this stage.’

  ‘Trixie, I’m your brother. I’d be failing in my duty if I didn’t have a proper talk with him to make sure he’s not only interested in your money—’

  ‘If you do that,’ she cried wildly, ‘I’ll write a will this minute, leaving everything to him whether we’re married or not.’

  There was silence at the other end of the phone. Then he said, ‘All right, calm down. I’ll leave it for the moment. But we need to have a really proper discussion, without you flying off the handle and throwing me out after five minutes.’

  ‘Yes, yes of course,’ she said.

  When she put down the phone her hands were shaking and slimy with sweat. Just one more thing to stress her out. And then she heard the doorbell. That must be the police.

  It was understandable that a foreigner who might well be in the country illegally should be wary of the police, but Strang found it surprising that a respectable lady of mature years should also greet their arrival with a coldly forbidding look and a greeting that was positively hostile, particularly when he introduced Tennant as his colleague.

  ‘I don’t know what you think you’re doing, harassing us like this. We’ve told you everything we can twice over.’

  Beatrice Lacey’s tone certainly was angry but her hands, clasped tightly in front of her, were shaking and she was blinking nervously. As she stood aside to let them in, Tennant nudged Strang, glancing pointedly at the telltale hands.

  Did he think he was likely to miss something as obvious as that? Answer: probably, yes. Perhaps it was meant to be helpful, but the man had really begun to annoy him. If you worked for the Met perhaps a sense of superiority came with the badge.

  ‘We just wanted to run over one or two points with you, Miss Lacey, and with Mr Carnegie too. Would you like us to speak to him first?’

  ‘You can’t, I’m afraid. He’s in Glasgow all day, on business.’

  ‘Oh. That’s unfortunate.’ Strang hadn’t expected that, but he couldn’t complain; he hadn’t actually told Carnegie to stick around. Damn! He’d slipped up there.

  ‘Never mind, perhaps we can clear things up with you first so we won’t have to trouble you next time. It’s this way, isn’t it?’

  He went purposefully towards the office where they had been before, followed by Tennant, though Beatrice hung back as if she still hoped to keep them standing in the hall. They were waiting beside the chairs by her desk before she lumbered in; she seemed breathless, but Strang wasn’t sure whether this was nerves or the usual result of mild exertion.

  Beatrice sat down in her cushioned chair with a little groan. ‘Well? What do you want to ask me?’ She was trying to sound aggressive but her voice shook a little and her muddy-grey eyes were round and frightened.

  Again, Strang got a significant, go-for-the-jugular look from Tennant which he pretended not to see. ‘Miss Lacey,’ he said gently, ‘you’re obviously very nervous, which puzzles me. What is it that you’re worried about?’

  She looked more frightened than ever. ‘Nothing! I don’t kn
ow what you mean! I just don’t like being harassed, that’s all.’

  Tennant didn’t wait for Strang to ask the next question. ‘This isn’t harassment. Are you making a formal complaint?’ He was leaning across the desk so that she shrank back

  ‘No, no, of course not,’ Beatrice bleated. ‘I just meant—’

  ‘Miss Lacey, is Mrs Macdonald in the house just now? Yes? Then, Constable, please could you go and check up with her that she hasn’t thought of anything else to add to what she told us yesterday? That will save us a bit of time.’

  Tennant gave him an incredulous look. ‘But—’

  Strang stared him out. ‘Thanks, Tennant.’

  He waited until the man, his face set, left the room then said, ‘We need to talk about this, don’t we? Shall I tell you what I think? I know from what you told me last time that you have a great respect and affection for Adam Carnegie. I think that perhaps there are things that are worrying you, that you think he might not want you to talk about.’

  Her eyes were filling and she was struggling to hold on to her composure. ‘No, no.’ Then there was a pause before she said, so quietly that she could barely hear him. ‘Not really.’

  He sank back in his chair, as if he were relaxing, making his body language as unthreatening as possible. ‘You know, “Not really” sounds as if it’s not anything very important and you’re probably worrying needlessly – or putting two and two together and making five. It’s easily done, when you’re a very scrupulous person.’

  The tears were spilling over, but she seized on that. ‘Oh yes, that’s what I keep telling myself!’ She grabbed a tissue from a box on her desk, dabbed at her eyes and blew her nose. ‘It was probably just a case of mistaken identity. I thought that at the time – that I’d jumped to conclusions because of the car.’

  ‘Hold on!’ Strang gave an easy laugh. ‘You’ve lost me – mistaken identity?’

  ‘It was just that I’d been to Oban – to check an order at the warehouse. I don’t know why there was a problem – failure in communication, probably – but anyway, I decided to drive back instead of staying the night. It’s expensive, accommodation, you know, and the work the charity does needs every spare penny.’ Beatrice was in full flow now, like a pent-up stream bursting the dam. ‘But it was a long drive and I began to worry that I was going to fall asleep – you know how it is. So I decided to take a break.’